


Host

by RobotSquid



Series: Alteration [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Mental Abuse, Torture, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 21
Words: 46,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobotSquid/pseuds/RobotSquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme.</p><p>The Condesce returns to Alternia, having lost the Psiioniic to the Vast Glub.  There, she finds his descendent, Sollux Captor.  And she takes him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A few hundred years is nothing. It’s a vacation, almost. It’s the first time she’s had nothing to do, nobody to order around, no society to oppress.

It was boring as fuck.

She’d vented all of her frustration already. The fury was spent. There was nothing left to break on board, nobody left to punish, no strength left to scream. From the instant she felt her connection with Gl’bgolyb sever ( _it had felt like a bone breaking with a sickening pop, the very memory of it disgusted her and made her want to cry like a pathetic wriggler_ ), as she witnessed all the trolls around her dying in bloodied, agonized throes, the Condesce had raged. She had gone from corpse to corpse, grabbing up every limp sack of meat she could find, saying how dare you die on me, how DARE you abandon your empress?! She’d shaken them, torn them apart, beheaded them for being so insolent, but none had responded. And when she’d felt the Vast Glub dissipate, she’d had to come to terms with the fact.

She was alone. The Glub was too sudden, too powerful for her to do anything against, especially now that Gl’bgolyb was no longer hers.

That very thought angered her just as much, or perhaps even more, than the massacre of her people. Having an eldritch abomination as a lusus was hard, and nobody ever understood, but she had loved the creature. She had the very distinct sense of being abandoned. By her custodian, by her ship, and by her power.

After all, what was an empress if she had nobody to rule?

There was nowhere to go but back to Alternia. The Helmsman was dead, his vilely shaded blood covering him like sloppy vomit. She had enough power to make it back without him, but she would have much preferred his company. Some days she sat and watched him, as if waiting for some kind of reaction or response. Some days she reached out and attempted to give him just a bit more life, as she had done so many times in their heyday, but she could not enhance what was simply not there.

Sometimes she just twirled her fingers around in his splattered blood, making meaningless designs, licking it from underneath her nails like fresh honey.

But not even six hundred years lasts forever, and soon…soon…the grey familiar planet came back into view. The Condesce could have broken down and wept for joy, and if she could have ever shaken the need to impress—even when nobody was around—she just might have.

She felt a tiny little whisper in her head. It was familiar, but not quite the same as it had been. She gasped, a short little intake of breath, as she realized that her connection with Gl’bgolyb was not entirely gone. Her lusus, after all this time, was still alive.

But just as quickly, the whisper was gone. It had not truly been a reconnection, and never would be. With a sinking horror, the Condesce realized why, even though Gl’bgolyb had recognized her return, and was still alive, her lusus did not take her back.

It had another.

An heiress.

The Condesce punched a hole through a nearby wall. Some little sniveling bitch of a wriggler had taken her lusus. While Her Imperious Condescension was _still fucking alive_.

It took nearly no time at all to locate the monstrous creature, even with the tiniest blip of a connection being all that remained. And where Gl’bgolyb was, this audacious little nooksucker was sure to be.

There was only one reason to live right now, only one reason to keep going after years and years of solitude. She was going to kill this heiress, and everyone she knew, everyone she loved or hated or even so much as considered for one of her quadrants.


	2. Chapter 2

It kind of sucked that Sollux was never going to get to see the inside of Feferi’s hive. At least, not long enough to enjoy it. He’d seen pictures, of course, and talked to her through the Trollian viewport, but when your matesprit lives underwater, it’s almost impossible to get invited to stay the night.

They’d talked about maybe asking Equius to build some sort of breathing apparatus for Sollux, but since said device would almost certainly get in the way of sloppy makeouts, Sollux decided it probably wasn’t going to be worth it.

“You don’t want to come over anyway, Sollux,” Feferi said. They were on the beach today, at a spot close enough to Sollux’s hive that he could make it home before the sun rose. “I’m pretty sure Eridan stalks me still.”

“I think he’s actually doing the same to me,” Sollux said. He had built himself a crude little sand castle between them and was searching in the sand for something to serve as a flag. “You know he still wants me for kismesis? It’s fucking sad.”

Feferi sighed. She didn’t much like talking about Eridan. “Yeah. I wish I could have been a better moirail for him but he’s just so high maintenance, I just completely ran out of energy….” She started making a sand castle of her own. “But let’s not forget that you’ve never invited ME over either!”

“Uh…yeah.” Sollux blushed. It was particularly hard to tell whenever he was or not, since his blood was so light, but when Feferi could see it she couldn’t help but giggle. It was insufferably cute. “You don’t want to come over. My hive’s full of way too much shit. And honey.”

“Honey?” Feferi cocked her head to one side.

“Yeah.” Sollux’s sand castle suddenly crumbled. “Honey. For my lusus.”

“Oh. I bet yours is much easier to feed than mine, huh?” She laughed, musically. Sollux wasn’t sure how she dealt with the stress of feeding her lusus with other trolls’ dead lusii, but he didn’t care much about how or why seatrolls did anything, really.

Feferi’s laughter stopped and she frowned. She leapt to her feet, grabbing her trident, and began to scan the horizon for something.

“What is it?” Sollux asked, warily standing up beside her. “Is it Eridan?”

She scoffed. “I wish. Gl’bgolyb’s…something’s weird. I’m going to go check on her, wait here.” She started for the shoreline, but Sollux grabbed her arm and pointed into the sky.

“Hold on, do you see that? Look.”

They both squinted, as something distant glinted in the sky, moving too quickly to be a wingbeast or any flying lusus, and it was…getting bigger. As it grew and grew in their field of vision, they both realized just how quickly it was moving, and that it was headed straight for them.

“It’s gonna hit the beach!” Feferi screamed, and she grabbed Sollux and made for the water.

“Wait—Feferi—” Sollux protested futilely, kicking up huge clouds of sand as he was dragged along. “You know I can’t swim—!”

They plunged deep into the water, and Sollux momentarily panicked, not knowing which way was up or down or how far away the surface was. He heard a muffled explosion, which he figured must have been the mysterious object finally crashing to the ground. Almost immediately, Feferi yanked him up to the surface, and he took in a breath of much needed air. As the adrenaline left him and he was able to take in the scene, he realized that going underwater was a good call: the object had landed exactly where he and Feferi had been sitting just moments prior.

Feferi pulled him up to the shore, and they both sat there, a bit awestruck. Sitting on the beach was a massive, red trident head. Upon closer inspection it looked almost like a ship, but it was too obscure to tell.

“There’s something written on the side there,” Feferi said, pointing up. She squinted, trying to make it out. “ ‘Battleship Condescension…’. That sounds…famil—” The blood suddenly drained from Feferi’s face.

“Oh no,” she said flatly.

“What? What is it?”

“We have to get out of here,” Feferi said, grabbing Sollux’s hand. “I’m not ready, I’m not ready to face her—”

“Who?” Sollux asked frantically. “What’s going on, Feferi?”

“Listen to me, you have to leave. You have to get out of here, just run as far as you can, and don’t think about me, don’t worry about me….”

She stopped midsentence, lurching forward. There was a wet sound, and a crack. Feferi’s eyes went wide and she opened her mouth to scream, but whatever she felt was beyond pain. Sollux looked down and saw a shining, golden metal spear sticking out from Feferi’s midsection, as two other spears encircled her on each side. The center point of the trident was covered in tyrian purple.

“Well. What have we here?”

Feferi whimpered as the trident was yanked forcibly from her body, and before she could fall forward into Sollux’s arms, she was grabbed from behind by the hair and thrown, like a doll, across the beach.

Sollux watched it all happen in fewer than twenty seconds, but the whole world had slowed down to drag it out for hours. His lips moved to form Feferi’s name, but he couldn’t say it, couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even form a coherent thought as he watched Feferi bleed out and clump the sand beneath her in fuchsia blood.

Somebody laughed. Sollux turned forward again, and looked up…further up…even further up…and… _HOLY SHIT_.

He fell down, his knees giving out, from the sheer shock, the sheer _impossibility_ of it. There was an adult standing in front of him, not just any regular adult but a highblood, and holy shit that was a fucking adult _seatroll_ ….

She was enormous, almost eight feet tall not counting horns if Sollux had to guess. She was bedecked in all the jewelry seatrolls were known for, and the trident that was still dripping with Feferi’s blood towered over her by at least two feet. Her horns were the same shape as Feferi’s, adding even more to her height and nightmarish size. She leaned down to get a closer look at him, and her mouth was widening in a grin that made him sick with dread. Something flashed in her eyes: recognition, and even worse, glee. She looked at the symbol on his shirt, then reached out and gently pulled down his glasses just enough to get a look at his mismatched eyes. She slowly ran her hand through his hair, and Sollux whined softly at how cold her skin was, and how her nails were so sharp that even the slightest brush against his scalp stung.

“What a perfect little replacement you’ll be,” she said, speaking the words as if she lapped up pure, dripping honey.


	3. Chapter 3

Sollux felt cold. The entire beach was suddenly freezing. His heart kept skipping beats and there was a weight in his stomach so heavy he could have thrown up at any moment. Speech was impossible. Thoughts were impossible. He could conceive of nothing more complex than _run away run away get away_.

The seatroll in front of him—Her Imperious fucking _Condescension_ –smiled, almost sweetly. “Can’t you speak, little one? Or have you inherited your ancestor’s unfortunate impediment?” She giggled. It made Sollux sick to realize how much it sounded like Feferi’s, only distorted, like a corrupted audio file underlaid with demonic drones.

Sollux’s mind slowly began to work again, putting together tiny little pieces like one corner of a jigsaw puzzle. He knew the empress lived for thousands of years, practically immortal if some of the more fanatical highbloods were to be believed. And what was it she had just said—something about his ancestor? Sollux had never found out anything about his ancestor. He had tried, once, back when he cared, but there was simply never any record of any troll that shared his symbol. Karkat, if he remembered right, had run into the same problem.

But the Empress had just mentioned his ancestor…what did she mean by that? Did he really have one after all? Sollux followed the implications of that train of thought as far as they would possibly go, and sunk deeper and deeper into the suffocating, repetitive thought of _I’m fucked I’m so fucked I’m so fucked_ ….

The Condesce moved her hand from the top of his head, resting it where his neck met his shoulder. Her palm was so big, just for her to clench it shut at that moment would have crushed his entire head, it seemed. Sollux sucked in an intake of breath, her cold, clammy skin and stinger nails far too close to his eyes for his liking. Every time he so much as blinked, it seemed to send uncontrollable bliss through her entire body.

“Well?” she asked. “This is simply no way to introduce ourselves, now is it? Tell me your name, little lowblood.”

It was minute, but her grip changed. She pressed harder on him, and she had moved only the barest amount closer. Sollux’s mouth had gone dry, but he swallowed hard, over and over, and tried to speak. If he didn’t, she was going to hurt him, he knew.

“Thhh…ssss…” he said pathetically, cursing his lisp a thousand million times in his head. It got worse when he was nervous. He had to control it. He had to. He swallowed again.

“Sollux,” he said successfully, quietly.

“Sollux,” the Condesce repeated, as if greeting a wriggler, calling an affectionate pet, as if it was simply the most adorable thing she’d ever heard in her life. She patted him on the head. “I’d simply _love_ to get to _know_ you better, Sollux.”

Shivers went all up and down his body. He clenched his teeth and tried not to make any noise. He was grabbing fistfuls of sand beneath him, trying and failing and trying and failing to get his paralyzed legs to move. The Condesce turned her head to look at Feferi’s lifeless heap of a corpse. There was now a wide, gruesome halo of pink blood staining the beach beneath her.

“What a beautiful color,” the Empress said musingly. “Would you like to know a secret, Sollux? I… _do_ believe that her blood was just a touch higher than mine.” She giggled again. “Well, that’s no longer a problem now, is it? I can already feel my lusus reaching out for me again. It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt the sweet embrace of her whispers in my head. Tell me, have times changed much in my absence?”

Sollux stared dumbly and the Empress laughed uproariously. “Of course you wouldn’t know, you precious, stupid thing. You are so very young. How many sweeps exactly?”

“Th…s-six.”

“Oh my!” The Empress widened her eyes in mock amazement. “You’re just a _baby_! You’ve got so much growing up to do, you are so _very_ tiny…my goodness, you’re shaking all over, did you know? Well, it’s no wonder, you’re positively soaking wet. It seems I’ll have to teach you some things, won’t I? Little landdwellers don’t belong in the sea, you silly thing.” She sighed, in an imitation of a frustrated yet loving lusus. “Very well. Come along, let’s go inside.”

She set down her trident and reached out with both hands. Something in that motion lit a fire in Sollux, and all his energy came crashing back into him. Before he knew it he was scrambling across the beach, digging his heels into the sand, cursing the way it gave underneath him and made him stumble. And then, as suddenly as he had bolted, he was facedown on the ground, having tripped. He lifted his face and brushed the sand from his hair, and then he was inexplicably dragged back the way he had come.

He turned and saw what at first looked like a black, dripping tentacle coiled around his ankle, but his eyes followed it and he discovered it was no tentacle, but the Condesce’s hair. Prehensile, and almost with a mind of its own, tresses and locks slithered in the air around her, all the limbs she could possibly need.

He tried to crawl away, tried to get a hold on the sand that was maddeningly liquid in his grip, but another coil lashed out and latched onto both his wrists. When the small distance between him and the Condesce was closed, the hair lifted him up to stand in front of her. The Empress scowled at him, her arms crossed in front of her chest, losing patience with her charming and funny little pet.

He struggled as best he could, straining and pulling his muscles in an attempt to break free, and it was just _hair_ for god’s sake, how could it be so unbreakable?? The more he struggled, the more locks of black, oily hair curled around his limbs. Bit of red and blue energy crackled from behind his glasses but it was not nearly enough, would never be enough, to so much as tickle her.

Finally, even the greatest burst of strength he could muster was not enough to move his bonds. Inhaling and exhaling as if he had broken free of drowning, he stopped, and looked up into the Empress’ eyes. She was standing at her full height now, and to look up at her face was a strain on Sollux’s neck. The hair surrounding his arms pulled them away from his sides, like a grotesque marionette, and the rest of the living strings bent him at the waist, pushed him down until he was positioned in a low bow.

“That’s a bit better,” the Empress said above him. “We’ll have to do something about that shameful display earlier…that’s certainly no way to treat your hostess. You lowbloods always were embarrassingly lacking in social skills.”

Sollux growled, and tried to shake his glasses from his face, anything to muster up just a bit more strength, anything to render him just a step above _completely helpless_. The Empress only laughed and let him stand up straight again.

“But I must say, I do like that fight in you,” she admitted. “You truly are my dear Psiioniic’s descendant. I wonder if my little heiress ever knew what a powerful tool she had in you.”

“She was my matesprit,” Sollux heard himself say. The Empress frowned, as if perplexed by the fact he could say more than one word at a time. “She was my matesprit!” he shouted, louder.

And immediately, from the gill-to-gill grin that grew across her face like Feferi’s pooling blood, Sollux knew that had been the absolutely wrong thing to say.

She leaned in closer, and no amount of will, no amount of adrenaline or strength could have let Sollux move from that spot. Nothing could have possibly let him get away from her, from this.

“No—” was all he managed to get out before she grabbed his chin and slammed her lips onto his with perfect aim. Her muscular tongue forced his lips open and invaded his mouth, thick and cold and wriggling like a bloated sea slug. She forced it further back, deeper and deeper until it was almost down his throat, and his eyes began to water as he tried to cough, gag, anything, but her lips were like a vice keeping his mouth shut around hers. Finally, she released him, ending the kiss, and the exiting was nearly as bad as the entering, as she dragged her longer-than-it-ought-to-be tongue across his lips and then slowly up his cheek, licking up the little tears that had escaped from his eyes. A shiver of glee went through her body and she sighed, ever so softly, as she retracted her tongue and licked her lips twice round.

“Then what does that make _us_ , little one?”


	4. Chapter 4

Sollux hung there, reeling in the aftermath of her touch, inhaling and exhaling shuddering breaths. It was obvious now—painfully, impossibly obvious—that the end of this was far away, so appallingly far away. Feferi was dead, nobody was going to think to look for him for a few days at least, and even if anybody noticed the Condesce’s ship crashing down, if anybody cared to come looking, the only ones who’d come would be highbloods who would then proceed to not give a single fuck about him.

It wasn’t going to be like those nights when he accidentally rolled out of his sopor slime, and woke screaming from nightmares. This wasn’t going to be a time when he could simply go to the roof and find his lusus, curl up in the bicyclops’ huge palms and feel the whole world go right again.

He was jerked back to his senses by the feel of the Condesce’s hand on his face.

“Now, as we were doing before you decided to act up, let’s head inside, shall we?” She paused and studied him for a second. “Will I have to carry you like a wriggler or are you going to be good?”

He didn’t answer her. Not out of insolence or defiance, but rather out of the fact that his mouth had practically stopped functioning. If her hair wasn’t still holding him upright right now, he would probably have collapsed.

The Condesce sighed, her answer given. “Very well.” She reached down to pick up her previously discarded trident, then made her way back onto the ship, her squid-like hair dragging his limp body across the sand. Although Sollux’s brain was screaming at him to fight, to run, to struggle, to _DO SOMETHING_ , he couldn’t will his muscles to respond. The shock had simply pulled all the energy out of him.

The sound of the metal door slamming shut behind them brought him back to reality.

The inside of the Battleship Condescension was dark, cold, humid…and it smelled of age-old corpses. There were bones and half-formed skeletons littering every possible corner of the bridge, dried and crusted-over blood painting the walls and the floors, all of them long since faded into the same sickly brown hue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were several pools of seawater towards the center of the ship, within which floated even more bones and remains of trolls long since deceased, tattered clothes and corroded weapons left where they had fallen. Whatever had happened here, nobody had bothered to clean up the mess, or give the fallen trolls some dignity in their deaths.

Whatever had happened here, it had happened sweeps and sweeps ago, and Sollux had no doubt that the Condesce had been there when it did. He had no doubt that she had witnessed their deaths, perhaps even been the cause of it, and had let them all rot where they fell, coming all this way among hordes of dead, living for eons in a rainbow-splattered tomb.

The implications were far too weighty for him, for his little six-sweep-old mind, for he who had probably lived his whole life in the amount of time it had taken the maggots to chew through the skin of just a handful of these trolls.

Sollux was just about to be sick when he suddenly realized that at some point, the Condesce had released him. She was watching him, deriving some kind of sick pleasure from the horror in his face.

“They’re not a very good crew,” she said, shrugging her shoulders theatrically and sighing. “They simply don’t listen to a _word_ I say.”

She kicked at some unidentifiable bone near her feet and it went clattering into the large pool at the center of the room. Sollux watched the pale bone sink into the water with an anticlimactic splash. He noticed then—how had he not seen it before?—the mind-boggling amount of wires and pulsing tentacles gathered in a gruesome trunk at the pool’s center.

Some of them were clearly inanimate cables and cords, but just as many of them were actually _moving_ , little spidery limbs that would occasionally stretch out into the air and reposition themselves.

“Oh!” the Condesce exclaimed suddenly, clapping her hands together. “Oh, I simply must show you this, my little lowblood. Come, we must go around to the other side.” She extended her hand to him.

Sollux stared at her outstretched palm, bewildered, until his tattered mind pieced together that she actually wanted him to take it. More than a little warily, he decided to comply for now, and put his hand into hers. She pulled him to his feet with little effort, but then, disconcertingly, did not let go. She kept a tight hold on his hand and led him along behind her, and he tried to ignore the sinking feeling of how wrong it felt to be this near to her, how disgusting it felt to touch her and be touched by her….

They circled around the center pool, tiny ripples lapping up against Sollux’s shoes as she led him closer in. He knew she was going to force him to look at whatever awaited them on the other side, so he kept his attention diverted as long as he could, staring down at his black and white shoes, ignoring her hands, ignoring her flesh, ignoring her living hair that even now was hovering close to him, ready to coil around him at his next, inevitable transgression.

“Helmsman,” the Condesce called out in a sweet, singsong voice. “I’ve brought you a visitor and you will be so _exciiiiited_ to see who it is!” Sollux did not have to look up to know she had turned her gaze on him.

“Look up, little one,” she said softly. “Say hello.”

When he didn’t comply right away, one of her hair tendrils, wet and thick, came up to lightly touch him on the underside of his chin. Biting his tongue to keep from screaming, he looked up.

A dead troll was wrapped, engulfed, _fused_ in the living wire trunk. The entire front of him save his face was slathered in dried, mustard-colored blood, some of which looked like somebody had been doing finger painting in. Inexplicably, this one hadn’t rotted or decomposed in the slightest like all the others. He was frozen in the exact moment of his death, eternally excruciating pain etched deep into all his features.

Sollux didn’t want to look any harder than that. One glance was all he told himself he would do. But he couldn’t help but notice the double horns. The color of blood that was familiar…not just _familiar_ but _his_ , HIS blood and his color and those eyes were even red and blue just like his, just exactly _unmistakably_ his same eyes—

Sollux clapped his hand over his mouth and doubled over at the stomach. _Fuck no fuck no shit SHIT oh my god oh my god—_

There was the now familiar feeling of the Condesce’s fingers in his hair, softly at first, and then she grabbed him, yanking his head upwards again, gleefully showing him, ecstatically displaying the extent of her power over him. She had done _that_ –she had done ALL OF IT—and not even the Psiioniic’s death could make it stop, make HER stop. It wasn’t about ancestors and descendants, old grudges or unrequited feelings—no, as far as the Condesce was concerned, Sollux _was_ the Psiioniic, and she had missed him desperately.


	5. Chapter 5

“Well, little one,” the Condesce said, pulling Sollux upright by his hair, “we’ve got places to go, so let’s not waste any time, shall we?”

She released him and he fell, waist-deep, into the pool. “I suppose we’ll have to start by cutting him down somehow.” She frowned, studying the Helmsman’s hanging corpse. “It was so long ago that he was installed, I’m not sure if I remember how to go about getting a new one in.” She shrugged. “Ah well. We’ll learn as we go, shall we?”

“Wait,” Sollux said. The ship had been quiet before, but it was as though the introduction of his voice had caused everything to go completely silent. As if everything held its breath with him to see how the Condesce would respond to his assertiveness.

“You…” he continued, trying to keep his voice from shaking as the ice cold water sunk into his clothes, “you want me to…I can’t…I _can’t_.”

“Oh, but he did,” she replied. “For many thousands of sweeps, he did.” She grinned and her eyes glinted like a sharpened knife. “Would you like to live forever, young one?”

“No, you can’t,” he insisted, pushing himself further away from her, deeper into the water, ignoring the fact that it was freezing, that he couldn’t swim, that she’d overtake him in a second no matter where he went. “You can’t put me up there.”

“I can do anything I want.” A statement. A fact.

“…Pleath—please,” he said, hating his weakness and how small he was and how big she was and how impossibly far away he was from anything safe, anything good….

There was nothing readable in the Condesce’s expression right then. There was a moment of tense inaction, and then she took one step into the water, and then another—

“Thstop!” Sollux shouted, pushing himself even farther away into the water, farther into where he knew he wouldn’t be able to move, wouldn’t be able to even breathe. “You can’t do that to me. Please, you can’t.”

“What am I to do with you, then?” she asked, crouching down in the water until she was shoulder deep, staring at him mischievously and with some amusement at his feeble attempts to stay above water. “We’ve only just met. And you see what brilliant conversationalists I’ve been stuck with. I’m just—so—boooored.”

Sollux didn’t feel the tentacle around his ankle until it was far too late. He was yanked underneath the water before he even had the chance to draw a breath. For a second he was certain he would suck in water and die. Just before the real panic started to set in, she loosened her grip and his head broke the surface.

“I suppose I could teach you to swim while you’re here,” she said, barely suppressing a giggle as she yanked him underwater again. She held him just an inch or so under the surface, close enough for him to be able to reach out into the blessed air but far too far away to breathe….

She let him break the surface again. He took in huge gulps of air, tried to tread water the way Feferi had showed him but it was all slipping his mind, and he couldn’t move his legs anyway with her hold on him and then suddenly her tentacles were around his wrists again—

“Or,” the Condesce said, a frigid darkness coming over her eyes, “I could teach you some fucking manners.”

There were a huge splash as the Condesce stood up from the water, drawn up to her full height, and yanked Sollux from the pool at the same time. She slammed him down onto the floor beneath her, her hair pulling his arms above his head so tightly Sollux was certain his shoulders would dislocate any second. She leaned over him, and there was absolutely nothing else in the entire world at that moment but her presence, her web of living hair and razor teeth and glacial eyes.

“It simply won’t do,” she hissed. The playfulness was gone. Sollux had actually succeeded in doing the one thing he’d been desperately trying to avoid.

“Luckily for you, you little lowblood shit, basic etiquette is founded around one simple principle: you—are—MINE.”

It was over so quickly. Sollux barely realized that she’d done it, and then it was over. The Condesce grabbed one of his outer horns in between her fingers—it was so tiny in her hands—and before he knew it, it was broken. She snapped it right in the middle, barely any effort, and the lightning bolt of pain went from his head all the way down his spine and throughout the rest of his body.

He screamed, his throat raw and dry within seconds. It was like having his arm broken with a hammer, as if she had ripped out his fingernails with her teeth, like nails pounded into his eyes, like—like—

The Condesce held the horn in front of his eyes, the crudely broken end smattered in blood. He didn’t know if the horror or the pain was worse. His skull was throbbing at the base of the snapped horn, his blood pounding in his ears and right behind his eyes and _I’m gonna be sick I’m gonna throw right the fuck up…_

“We’re getting off on the wrong foot, you and I,” the Condesce said, tossing the horn across the floor. “I’m a very patient troll but I don’t see how I can be expected to tolerate this behavior much longer.”

She slapped one hand over Sollux’s mouth, muffling his screams and keeping his head still. “You do not speak to your Empress in this way,” she said, her fingers stroking the smaller, inner horn beside its broken twin, taunting him, showing him how easy and effortless this was, how little thought she needed to put into it. “This is something you will learn, one way or another. But we have no need to worry. I am an excellent teacher.”

She waited until his frantic muffled screaming had subsided, then removed her hand.

“I’m sorry,” Sollux blurted out immediately, the words strained as he tried to keep from fainting from pain. That was what she wanted to hear, wasn’t it? It had to be. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry….”

The Condesce still didn’t look satisfied.

“I’m sorry,” he tried again. “I don’t know what I wath—what I was thinking. I’ll do what you tell me. I’ll do whatever you th—say.”

The coils around his wrists loosened and immediately his hands flew upward to staunch the bloodied remains of his horn. He tried not to imagine how bad it must look, pushed away the nausea at the feel of uneven layers of broken and split keratin.

The Condesce grabbed his shoulders and pulled him upright to a sitting position, then—almost _gently_ —coaxed his hands away from the injury. “Oh, here, little one, let me see,” she said softly.

“Ooooh,” she murmured, once again a pale imitation of a doting lusus. “That’s not so bad. There’s no need to be quite so upset.”

She pulled off his glasses and discarded them carelessly. Sollux did not know where she threw them, nor did he even hear them hit the ground. She ran one thumb underneath his eyes to wipe away tears he hadn’t even noticed. She frowned, studying his face like a painting, then leaned over top of his head and wrapped her serpentine tongue around the bloodied horn stump.

He yelped, the sudden pressure stinging, but didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to say or do anything as she sucked and licked until the blood stopped flowing. It even felt…good.

 _No it doesn’t fucking feel good don’t even think that never think that it doesn’t it DOESN’T…._

The Condesce pulled away and ever so daintily wiped a stray drop of yellow blood from her lips. “There now,” she said, now satisfied. “All better.” She ruffled his hair, careful to keep her hand away from the tender area. Whether she did that out of actual concern or not, Sollux couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even tell if that was real affection in her eyes, if maybe she really didn’t want to hurt him….

“Now what do we say?” she asked, tapping her fingernails against the steel floor.

“…Thank you,” Sollux replied, trying his damned hardest not to make it sound like a question.

He didn’t know what made him do what he did next. Somewhere, deep inside, it must have seemed like a good idea, his brain finishing the entire thought process before he himself was even aware of it. Maybe his subconscious knew better than he what he’d have to do to survive, or at the very least, survive more comfortably. Maybe it was because it certainly wasn’t hard to figure out that she’d like it, and if she liked it she’d be happy, and if she was happy, maybe he’d actually be okay….

Sollux kissed the Empress. It wasn’t like their first one; he didn’t know how to do anything like what she’d managed. It was tiny, chaste, naïve, but—he hoped—appreciative. He averted his eyes once he was finished, hoping she wouldn’t do anything like hit him, or make him do any more, or—worst of all—laugh.

But she didn’t. Her cold arms were suddenly around him again, pulling him close up against her, and she was cradling him like a mother grub with her clutch, stroking him from the top of his head all the way down his back. Not even from his lusus had he ever felt such raw, undiluted affection.

“You’re mine,” the Empress murmured pensively. The vibrations of her chest as she spoke reverberated through his whole body. “You’re mine and you’re not leaving me alone here, never again.”


	6. Chapter 6

Feferi had always smelled like salt and fresh air. Even after she had been out of the water for a few nights, or even a few hours, a breath beside her was always like a breath of sea breeze. She had always been a little cool to the touch due to her amphibious nature, but it was never chilling. It was soothing, almost, like balm. Even the tiny webbing between her fingers had never been clammy or uncomfortable when they held hands. It had just felt natural; it was a part of her that didn’t feel out of place or odd.

Sollux’s favorite thing about Feferi’s appearance, however, had always been her hair. It was always so incredibly soft to the touch. He’d used it as a pillow to nap on many times. Something in the seawater, he figured, must be good for it, or perhaps it was just her biology that made her tresses so perfect. He didn’t care what it was, what made it that way, as long as it stayed. Sollux had made Feferi promise that she’d never cut her hair, to which she’d gigglingly responded that she wouldn’t.

He’d asked Aradia the same thing, a long time ago.

Everything about Feferi that made him feel safe, feel happy…it was every single bit of it _wrong_ with the Condesce.

Slimy, damp skin like a sick frog, stringy, chafing hair, and not a trace of body heat to speak of. She was wrong, all, all wrong. If Feferi had lived—

 _Oh god Feferi she killed Feferi and I watched her do it, I didn’t save her, didn’t do anything at all like a fucking coward_

—would she have eventually felt like this? As she lived out her life as Empress, how much of her innocence would have been lost? Would she one day have stopped laughing, when the blood pigment filled her eyes would the eternal glimmer of excitement be pushed away?

Would Feferi, and everything that Feferi was, have died, just like Aradia had?

Back in the present, in reality’s horrible realness, the Condesce ended their embrace, pushed Sollux back and studied his face. She was smiling.

“Are we feeling better now?” she asked. Sollux nodded slowly. But she frowned, tilting her head to one side.

“You don’t look better,” she said. “Tell me what I can do to make you smile. I haven’t _once_ seen so much as a grin on your cute little face!”

 _You can let me cut you open and bleed you out like you did to my matesprit, you can die slowly, tortured and fucking mutilated like you did to my ancestor you BITCH you unbelievable fucking bitch…._

The Condesce frowned and for a horrible frozen second Sollux thought she might have actually heard his thoughts. She slowly got back on her feet, leaving him crouched on the ground, and the shadow she cast over him was like a storm cloud. He didn’t move; he only waited. He was certain, _certain_ , that somehow she must have heard him, she was so powerful, of course she’d be able to read his thoughts, of course, of course she would….

“I didn’t think,” she said, brushing a stray strand of hair from her eyes, “that I’d actually have to treat you like a grub, but since you insist on acting like one, what other course of action lies before us?”

She reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him up to his feet. “I’d thought this—” she roughly tapped her fingertip on his broken horn, sending a sudden knife-twist of pain into his skull “—would have deterred you from insolence, but alas, you lowbloods continue to make life challenging. So Sollux?”

“…Yesth?” he replied warily.

“When I ask you a question, I don’t want to see any more of this nodding or head shaking. I want you to speak. You have a tongue, don’t you, you three-horned freak? _Use it_. Do you _understand_?!” she shouted, her voice reverberating all throughout the bridge, piercingly sharp in his ears.

“Yeth,” he said quickly. He cursed silently; he tried again. “Yeth,” it came out again. _Fuck, what the FUCK?!_

The Condesce seized him by the arm and dragged him to the nearest wall, slamming him up against the blood-encrusted metal, knocking his broken horn against the cold steel.

“That’s another thing I hate,” she hissed. “The fucking Psiioniic couldn’t even say his own CODDAMN NAME.” She grabbed a stray piece of jagged metal, some broken piece from an indiscernible source, and swung it across Sollux’s face, raining drops of yellow blood over the floor.

It was almost too quick and too sudden to even hurt at first, but the sting came sure enough, and Sollux immediately began pressing his hands down on the wide scrape now adorning his forehead. He could feel rivulets of blood already flowing down as far as his chin. _Don’t panic, she’s just upset, she’ll calm down again in a second, just don’t panic…_

“Don’t you fucking touch it,” she hissed. She grabbed Sollux’s face with her enormous palm and slammed the back of his head into the wall again, this time eliciting a cry of pain from him. “Put your fucking hands. DOWN.”

He obeyed her, hating to see his own blood-stained hands trembling as he moved them down to hang at his sides. He shut his left eye tightly to keep the blood from flowing in. The blow to his head had dizzied him, but he was staying upright, he was going to keep standing, and it was okay, it was all okay because this wasn’t going to last, she would calm down again soon….

“Good,” she snapped. No more sympathy in her eyes, only vicious disappointment. And disgust.

“You see THIS—” she reached forward and ground her thumb sharply into Sollux’s open forehead wound “—is called discipline. It’s something you lowbloods were once very much used to. And it’s something you would take, without complaining and without crying. You will _let me hurt you_ if I want to. _Do you underfuckingstand_?!”

“Ye—” Sollux started to say again, but his tongue just wouldn’t place right, it wasn’t going to come out right and he knew it, he was too nervous, he couldn’t move it right…. He swallowed tightly.

She sneered, losing what little patience remained lurking in her. “Answer your Empress, Sollux. Answer your Empress without that despicable fucking lisp just _one coddamn time_ , for fuck’s sake.”

And then, he finally did start to panic.

He reached up and wiped away the blood that was still pouring down his face, feeling a tightness in his throat that wasn’t going to let him speak at _all_ , much less the way she wanted him to. He wouldn’t be able to say it right, he knew it. Feferi and Aradia had always liked his lisp, they thought it was cute, and they never made fun of him for it, but why, WHY, when his life ACTUALLY depended on it, why didn’t he know how to control it?

 _Oh my god, she’s going to hurt me, she’s going to fucking hurt me,_ raced through his mind frantically, and controlling his shaking was getting to be impossible—

“Put out your hands, little one.”

“No, no, I can do it, I’m thorry, I can thay it—”

“Put out your fucking hands.”

Relenting, he did so, and instantly the hair tendrils were wrapped around his wrists, then his arms were yanked behind his back and bound there tightly. The Condesce took a silent step forward.

“I’m thorry, I’m thorry,” he said pathetically, his lisp worse than it had ever been, and she wasn’t listening to him anymore anyway.

The Empress sighed, frustrated. “This is the trouble with you young ones. You’re only sorry because now, you’re in trouble. Nobody likes to be punished, Sollux, but….” She shrugged. “If anybody liked it, it wouldn’t be that effective a punishment now, would it? So what am I to do with you now? How will you learn?”

There was no running away. There was no getting away from this spot, from this second in time; he was completely, inexorably trapped.

“I heard once,” the Condesce said, almost conversationally, “that the best way to keep a wriggler from growing up spoiled is to simply not let them have their way with everything. It may be an instinct of a lusus to want to comfort their crying grub, but sometimes a grub needs to cry. For instance, you and I now. You are trying to elicit a response from me by putting on this show, thinking that I want to comfort you, that I’ll stop. But I just can’t spoil you with affection, now can I?

“That’s why I’m going to break your fingers.”

Sollux’s eyes went wide but that was all the reaction he could give before she grabbed his shoulder and threw him face down to the floor. He distantly heard himself screaming, pleading, was vaguely aware of kicking and thrashing around as much as he could, but then the Empress was on top of him, and not even a rush of adrenaline would be enough for him to overpower her.

She held one hand steady, his right one, easily pulled his index finger free from the tight fist he was making, and pressed with her thumb against the middle joint, pushing and pushing and _pushing_ it to the side, the way it wasn’t meant to go, and already the pressure was so bad, the sharpness and panic was so bad….

It popped, cracked, then _snapped_. There was the barest instant of blacking out, then Sollux was wide awake and all the agony was there waiting for him. Who would have thought that such a tiny broken bone would feel like that? He really _did_ feel like a pathetic wriggler then, how badly it hurt and how he was crying as much out of fear as the pain.

It was throbbing, and with each pulse of his filthy blood the pain reverberated into the rest of his body. He felt her freezing, slick hands take his next finger, then she began to twist it, like she was trying to open a bottle, and he was certain that if—when—she succeeded it would pop right off his hand.

“ _NO_ ,” he screamed, “pleathe pleathe I’ll do anything you want if you don’t break another one!! Pleathe, I’ll do anything, don’t do another one, pleasth—mmph--!”

A tentacle of hair forced its way into his mouth and another wrapped itself around his head, gagging him, forcing him to be quiet, and he could hear the delighted little giggles of the Empress at his muffled screaming. The frigidity of her fingers subsided just the slightest bit, replaced by an unmistakable warmth, and with a sinking sickness he realized there was only one reason why her whole body would be feeling warmer—

 _Fuck she’s getting off on this she likes it she’s fucking aroused shut up Sollux shut up shut up she likes it she likes hearing me scream—_

He tried to bite his tongue, but the tentacle was wriggling around inside his mouth, filling it up entirely, and he was absolutely freaking the _fuck_ out over the noises the Empress was making on top of him, the way she was laughing and exhaling so slowly, so happily, the way her hand was grabbing tightly onto his shoulder to hold him still, and now she was leaning in closer to him and she was utterly radiating warmth—

 _Think of something else. Go somewhere else. Somewhere she doesn’t exist. Somewhere this isn’t happening…._

He tried to shut his eyes and sink into blackness. He tried to force himself somewhere else, sometime else, dug deep into his memories for something good, some feeling that didn’t hurt, some tiny bit of fucking _hope_. He had to believe that there would be an “after”, a time when this and the Empress was the past, a memory, something that he had survived.

 _Think about seeing your lusus again, making the mind honey, think about talking to Karkat again…_

He could imagine the look on Karkat’s face already, the way he would glare like he was trying really hard to appear pissed off, but it would be obvious what he really wanted to say.

 _”Where have you been, you stupid fuckass? I was worried.”_

The Condesce’s hand reached down to his face, through the haze of blissful distraction, and her touch tugged him back into the merciless plane of physicality. The pain in his broken fingers, searing and constant, rushed back into him. He couldn’t tell how many she had broken. He couldn’t move any of them. Her living lock of hair was still wriggling around in his clamped mouth, but somewhere along the way he had stopped screaming, whether through tiredness or just having given up. He didn’t fight it.

“Don’t cry, little one,” she whispered, her voice directly next to his ear, soft like the breeze off the ocean. “Shhh…I’m here.” She kissed the top of his head. “It’s all going to be all right. I’m here.”

Sollux closed his eyes. He was tired…so tired.


	7. Chapter 7

_It’s over. It’s all over. You knew it would be eventually and now it is. So just get up. Get up and try to stop fucking it all up._

Sollux tried to listen to what he was telling himself, tried to understand the last rational part of his brain, but it was hard, so hard, to get his body to respond. He wanted to lie there forever, to just fall asleep and leave his consciousness while the Empress did whatever the fuck she wanted to him. She was going to anyway, wasn’t she?

“Sollux.”

 _Oh my god that sounded exactly like Feferi for a second I’m going insane I’m losing my fucking mind…._

“Sollux, I want you to get up now.”

Small steps. One thing at a time. She had released the tentacle from his mouth by now and he took in a deep, savoring breath. Then he let it out, felt the bonds on his hand relax, and carefully, slowly, brought his hands forward to rest on either side of him. He pushed against the cold, wet floor, and raised himself to his knees.

The shadow stretching out on the floor in front of him told him the Condesce was already standing, standing behind him and watching his every move.

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry that I had to do that,” she said, her voice like the cooled, smothered embers of a raging fire. “I did it so you would learn.”

Sollux mustered up the strength to look at his broken fingers, then felt his stomach flip over almost three times. The joints were swollen and glowing bright yellow, he couldn’t even _move_ them anymore and though the pain had dulled by now there was still the steady buzzing of discomfort. What he had didn’t even look like a hand anymore, just a ballooned, grotesque imitation.

“Now let’s not have any more of this.” Footsteps. She walked towards the edge of the ship’s center pool, glancing up at the hanging corpse of the Helmsman. She studied him a minute, then called sharply, “Sollux, come.”

Using his left, undamaged hand for support, Sollux got back to his feet. He steadied himself, then walked over to where the Empress stood. It simply wasn’t in him anymore to conceive of any thoughts that didn’t comply with her wishes.

“Now as I said before. Climb up there and tear him down. You may come down when you are finished.”

“…Yes, Empress.”

A genuine smile appeared on her face and she ruffled his hair. “Off you go, then.”

Sollux waded into the pool. It wasn’t far from here to the cable trunk, but there would still be a point where his feet would not touch bottom. Staying afloat would be difficult enough, much less with only one functioning hand. He set his swollen right hand into the cold seawater, finding it pleasantly soothing to his burning joints. He walked until the water was up to his neck, and then there was only a little farther to go until he’d have something to grab onto….

He held his breath, then let himself go under. It wasn’t far, only about six feet or so, but he was able to clumsily paddle himself over until he could grab onto the wires. Some of the cables didn’t even feel like machinery: there was still something decidedly live within the miasma, and some of the living wires stretched out and prodded his hand, perturbed yet tolerant. They were like slender, sentient tongues.

The trunk did not extend at an exact ninety degree angle. It sloped, allowing Sollux to shimmy upwards using his elbows and knees. The point at which the Helmsman was fused was the smallest part of the cable mass, and then the rest continued towards the ceiling, giving the entire thing the appearance of a gruesome hourglass.

It wasn’t far to his destination. Even lacking a working hand, he was able to close the gap quickly.

He had been trying not to look, but as soon as the Psiioniic’s torso was in his line of sight, bile fascination led him to look closer.

The troll really could have died just hours ago. Nothing about him was decomposed or rotted in the slightest. Whatever had happened, the blood had poured from his mouth like vomit, even burst out of his eyes and coated his face as though the very orbs in his head had popped. Something was attached to his face, something that—sickeningly—looked very similar to Feferi’s goggles, and the closer Sollux looked the harder it was to tell where the Psiioniic’s body ended and the wires began. They were wholly meshed, intertwined as though the Helmsman had been hatched in this very spot.

 _What in the fuck did she do to you? Why didn’t anybody ever come to help? How many of those dead fuckers on the floor watched this shit happen and did nothing?_

Sollux grabbed a handful of wires and began to pull, yanking them out as sparks flew and yellow blood began to pour from the living tendrils. Even if the Condesce had not commanded him to do so, he still would have. He grabbed another, pulled and pulled and _tore_ those fuckers away, digging the Helmsman out of his latticed hell, anything to see something about it all _change_ , anything to undo even the smallest effect the Empress may have had.

 _It’s okay,_ he thought to himself grimly, grinning despite himself as he threw down another handful of wet, slimy cords. The masses splashed distantly, one by one, sinking into the freezing pool, obscuring it with a cloud of yellow lifeblood. _It’s okay, Ancestor. We’ll be all right, we both will._

The Psiioniic didn’t answer. His mouth hung open, his eyes seeing nothing anymore, the crackle of energy long having abandoned his husk.

Sollux kept grabbing bundles of wires and veins, pulling them until they snapped, discarding them when they were free, ignoring the yellow blood that poured out and all the way down to his elbow. Pull, snap, pull, snap, pull, snap….

Just when it was beginning to feel like he’d made no progress at all, there was a huge shift in the Psiioniic’s weight placement. His body began to loll forward, ready to tip over at the next well-placed tear. Sollux grabbed a particularly promising bunch of wires and pulled them out in one clean swipe, and then the Psiioniic’s arms were free.

But arms were all he had. Sollux stared a moment, unsure of what he was seeing, and then cold horror pushed nausea into his stomach. The Psiioniic’s corpse had no hands. At the end his arms was nothing but what looked like chewed-upon nubs. Sollux glanced up into the gaping hole he had just freed the Helmsman from, as if stupidly trying to locate his hands there, but there was nothing. The wires had eaten them away.

The _ship_ had eaten the Psiioniic.

Freezing, prickly terror began to itch all over Sollux’s face, then he bent himself over and retched onto the opposite side of the wire mass. Most of it was dry heaves, and he hadn’t realized before now how empty his stomach really was, but it didn’t matter because holy _fuck_ there was no way he could turn back and look at his ancestor’s remains after that, there was no way he could keep touching this thing—

“I don’t recall giving you permission for a break,” came the Condesce’s voice, almost singsong, from down below.

Sollux took a breath, wiped the sweat from his bloodied forehead, then shut his eyes as tight as he could and reached out for more wire to tear away. He tried to black out his consciousness again, tried to imagine something and somewhere else, but this…this was too fucking real. He dug out the wires sticking themselves into the Psiioniic’s waist, ignored the splattering blood that was all over his shirt and his pants now, sinking through his clothes and into his skin, making his palms slick and now it was getting so hard to keep a hold on the wires, but he was almost there, almost done and then he wouldn’t have to look anymore….

All the wires surrounding the Psiioniic were now detached. Sollux leaned all his weight on the mutilated cadaver that had once been his Ancestor, and the remains toppled unceremoniously, thickly, into the water below.

Just as the upper wires had eaten away the Helmsman’s hands, so too had the lower ones feasted on his legs. What remained of the Psiioniic was nothing but a bloodied heap of a troll, lacking anything below the waist or above the elbows. The spot where he had once been attached was now a sore, pulsing hole in a wall of living flesh and wire, covered in messy splotches of all-too-familiar yellow.

Sollux meekly peeked down at the seawater pool. Large ripples showed him where the body had fallen, but he could no longer see it. The water was too clouded with cables and blood.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter contains non-con.**

“Come on down now, Sollux,” the Condesce called. “You’ve done _very_ well! I have a reward for you.”

Sollux obeyed her, trying not to think of how he’d have to wade through the now desecrated pool. He simply closed his eyes as he descended—a bit harder than going up now that his entire body was so slick—and gritted his teeth against the feel of the bloody pool. It wasn’t pleasant, was barely bearable, but he did it. He did it, and now he was back on the ground, and the Empress was smiling.

“Excellent job, little one,” she said, leaning in to kiss him. He accepted it without a fight.

“Now that you’ve completed your task, I will allow you to rest for a bit.” She smiled without showing her teeth. “You see? Do things right, and you will be rewarded.”

“Yes, Empress.”

“Come, let us sit.” The Condesce made her way towards an oversized chair near the back wall of the ship. It looked to be in imitation of her throne, so that she might have one with her wherever she traveled. She sat down in the plush, high-backed seat with a weary sigh, as if _she_ had been the one ripping through centuries-old decay for hours and hours. She leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.

“Come _here_ , Sollux,” she said with just the slightest hint of impatience. He hurried over to stand next to her, and as soon as he arrived she seized him around the waist and lifted him up, effortlessly, and placed him in her lap.

“I think it’s important to let your servants rest,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “Otherwise they won’t get much work done at all, now, will they?”

Sollux’s feet were hanging over one arm of the chair, and the Condesce’s lap was so big he was more lying there than sitting. For a while, they sat there not saying or doing anything. The Condesce would idly scratch the top of his head with her sharp nails, staring pensively at the clouded pool, sighing heavily every so often but showing no other signs of displeasure.

“Helmsman…” the Condesce said wistfully. Several moments of silence passed before Sollux realized that she was talking to _him_.

“Yeth—yes, Empress?”

“I was so lonely. After it happened…after the Glub.” She put her arms around Sollux and hugged him close to her chest. Warily, he returned the embrace. She’d want that, she’d like that. “I was all alone.”

Sollux didn’t know what to say. Did she even want him to respond?

“Why did you leave me here by myself?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

“I—” His voice caught in his throat. _Fuck she’s lost her fucking mind what the hell do I say what do I say to her—_

She hugged him tighter, breathed in his scent, and licked a bit of the blood off his neck. “Sollux…” she exhaled, “you’re so young. So young, so little. I couldn’t…I couldn’t bear to lose you too. You’ll stay here with me, won’t you?”

She released him, sat up straight again, and entwined his small fingers in hers. She smiled at him, leaning forward until their foreheads were touching, until he saw nothing but her cold, cold fuchsia eyes.

“Give me a kiss, Sollux,” she said. “Like I’m your matesprit. You’ve had one, I know you have. Kiss me like I’m…her.”

He didn’t think. He just did it, got it over with so she wouldn’t be upset, so the waiting and anticipation wouldn’t ravage his remaining sanity. He put his lips up against hers, and they didn’t fit at all, her mouth was so big she could simply open it and eat him up whole.

The Condesce didn’t stick her tongue down his throat again, as he’d been expecting. In fact, she didn’t do anything at all. She wanted _him_ to do it. Wanted him to show her what he could do, what little he was capable of.

He had only kissed Feferi once. It was because she was ashamed of how cold her lips felt to him, how gross she was sure it felt. It had been one of the few things they ever fought about.

A kiss from Aradia had been…amazing. Despite the amount of time she’d spent playing and digging in the dirt, everything about Aradia had been soft and clean. They were always small, casual kisses. Sollux might have liked to brag to Karkat about all the sloppy makeouts he got, but he and Aradia had never done anything like that, and had never needed to.

“Uuh—aah!” He broke away sharply. Something was touching him—the Condesce was touching him. She’d snaked her hand up under his shirt, and with the other hand she grabbed the back of his head and forced him back into the kiss—

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice only slightly muffled by the contact. Her hand was moving down, past his waist, and he had the overwhelming desire to grab her, push her away, jump up and run, but she’d catch him, she’d take him because she _could_ , because he was _hers_ , and he didn’t have the right, shouldn’t ever, ever, ever think he could possibly deny her anything at all.

“It’s all right,” she repeated, resting her forehead against his, her eyes closed, her hand exploring parts of him that weren’t hers, weren’t anybody’s to touch, and yet she was, and she was allowed, she had every last right to do this, because he couldn’t say no, not even if he was able to form the words….

He bit his tongue, feeling his own sharp teeth pierce the skin, and as metallic blood filled his mouth he swallowed it all down, trying to focus on some other sensation, something else besides how disgustingly good it felt to have his blood pulsing so fast….

“You can grab onto me if you like,” she told him. “And you may let go when I am finished.”

Without hesitation, Sollux threw his arms around her neck and buried his face in her shoulder. He was going to stay here, in this darkness, until it was done. This was going to be his anchor, and he would stay here, he would hold on, until she was satisfied again. Small steps. One thing at a time.

She hooked one arm around his torso to hold him steady and then, with the other hand, grabbed onto his bulge. His whole body stiffened and he bit down on his bloodied tongue again. She stroked masterfully, knowing everything, every last place to touch. Sollux was grabbing her so tightly he felt his arms shaking from the exertion, and god he had never felt this before, never had there been such an intense mixture of pleasure and nausea in his whole life, and he wanted her to stop, wanted her to keep going, wanted her warm hands away from him, wanted to press himself deeper into her because it was only getting better—

“Psiioniic,” the Empress said, “don’t cry. I know it hurts, but it won’t kill you. I promise you, it’ll never kill you.”

 _I’m not the fucking Psiioniic, I’m not I’m not_

“Mmm….” A tiny vocalization of pleasure escaped him. He felt her silent laugh against his body.

“Don’t be so quiet, tiny thing. Tell me how you really feel. Go ahead, open up that mouth. _Scream_ for me.”

It was building, building, _god don’t stop don’t stop if you stop I’m going to fucking lose it_

He was taking in faster and sharper breaths now, grabbing her tighter, pushing himself into her, every inhalation like the gasp of a drowning troll.

“Scream,” she told him, licking more blood from his neck. “ _Scream._ ”

Release. Blinding, devastating release.

“ _AaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!_ ”

He put everything in that scream. Everything that she had done, everything that he had lived through and survived, encapsulated in one climactic howl, heard by absolutely nobody at all.

And he screamed again. So frustrated, so angry, how and why the _fuck_ had he let her do that to him, why had he let her warp him like this? He hadn’t even wanted to go to the beach with Feferi today. If he’d stayed home, she wouldn’t be dead, and he wouldn’t be _here_ , the world would still be normal. He’d never erase this, no matter how many more times he screamed, no matter, no matter, no matter, everything he had been and everything he had to go back to was already dead and gone.

“You can let go now,” the Condesce said.

Sniffling, and angry enough to punch her no matter what kind of punishment that might bring on him, Sollux released his grip on her. Something wet, unfamiliar, and sticky was all over his legs and the Condesce’s lap, but she didn’t seem to mind, or even notice it.

“That was much better, Sollux,” she told him, patting him on the head. “You did exactly what I said without a fuss.”

“Thank you, Empress,” he replied lifelessly, and gave her a small kiss. He didn’t even know what he was thanking her for. He didn’t care.

A new sound resounded through the hollow cavity of the bridge. Both Sollux and the Condesce looked up. The sound, a metallic pounding, repeated itself. Somebody was…knocking on the door.

“Oh,” the Condesce said. “We have a visitor.”

 _Oh thank god thank god somebody’s here please be my lusus be Karkat be fucking Eridan I don’t care—_

The door creaked open warily, and three large silhouettes stood on the threshold.

“Come in, do come in!” the Condesce said cheerily. “Goodness, it’s getting rather lively in here, isn’t it?”

The three newcomers came in warily, clearly unsure of what they expected to find in the crashed ship, but there was no fear about them. The door was shut, blocking out the moonlight from outside, and then Sollux could see them clearly.

Three fully grown seatrolls were standing on the opposite side of the clouded cable pool, grinning with absolute manic delight. Gracefully, reverently, they bowed in perfect simultaneity.

“Your Imperious Condescension,” said one, the tallest one, as they stood upright again. “It is an undeniable pleasure to find you here.”


	9. Chapter 9

Of all the things. Of all the fucking things to happen. Of course the reappearance of Her Imperious Condescension wouldn’t fail to draw the attention of other trolls on the planet. And of course the first ones to notice would be other seatrolls. It had been a nagging worry for Sollux in the beginning, before things had gotten…worse. Given the time, he might have been able to come up with a plan for getting away from the Condesce, or at least getting far enough into her favor to not die.

Three other adult trolls…complicated that.

The seatrolls and the Empress were talking, exchanging some form of pleasantry, discussing something or other, but Sollux wasn’t listening. He didn’t want these adults anywhere near him and the Empress. They’d fuck it up, they’d fuck it all up. Having others around added too many unforeseen variables into—into _everything_.

 _But,_ he thought to himself, _it might not be so bad. Maybe she won’t pay as much attention to me now. She’ll be distracted, I can get out, I can leave…._

“Did you hear that, little one?” the Condesce said with a smile, hugging him like a plush toy. “They’ve said they’ll fix our ship for us. Isn’t that exciting?”

Sollux turned his attention back to the sick reality he was falling deeper into. Whatever they had been talking about was evidently over by now. The three other trolls were moving about the ship, one of them clearing away the skeletons like inconsequential trash, while the other two fiddled with burned out wires and machinery.

“J-just…just all by themselves?” he asked. “Won’t that take a long time?”

She looked at him with some amusement. “Are you offering to help, little one?”

A sudden spark of hope swelled in him. If he could fix a computer, if he could somehow get onto Trollian long enough to leave a single message, he could tell Karkat where he was, what had happened, and maybe…maybe….

 _But what the hell could anybody I know do against the fucking Empress? Not even…not even Eridan could do anything…._

“I could,” he ventured. “I know…I know some things about computers. I know how to fix one.”

The Condesce laughed and ruffled his hair. “You are so eager to please me, I find that positively adorable. But there’s no need to do any more, Sollux. Have you forgotten that you are going to be my new Helmsman? I need you well-rested for the journey before us. As a matter of fact….”

She paused, then picked a fleck of dried blood out of his hair. “You are looking quite the mess, little one. Why don’t we go outside for some nice air, and I’ll give you a bath. Would you like that, Sollux?”

Outside. Back into the world he remembered but would no longer be the same. Feferi’s body would probably still be there in the sand.

 _You fucking traitor seatrolls you probably walked right by her didn’t you she was going to be your fucking Empress SHE was your ruler not this bitch who lost her fucking mind sweeps ago…._

But it might be the last time. So he forced a smile, and replied, “Yes. I’d really like it.”

“Good! Now hang on, put your arms around me here, there you go….” She stood up, carrying Sollux in her arms. He felt like he weighed nothing in her hands. She carried him across the bridge, cradled close to her chest like a grub.

“We’re stepping out for a moment,” she called sweetly to the three busy seatrolls. They turned and nodded their heads, but very distinctly took note of Sollux, shooting him a very different look with very different implications.

The Condesce opened the door and they stepped out onto the sand. The moon was high in the sky, clear moonlight illuminating the entire beach. Had it really been an entire night since she’d arrived, since everything had changed? Sollux quickly scanned the beach for any sign of Feferi’s body, just to prove that it was really real, that this wasn’t a vivid dream he could shake himself out of by noticing just one thing out of place.

He saw the dark spot on the sand that had, hours ago, been her blood. Feferi’s body was not there. It had been dragged out by the tide. She was probably sunk somewhere on the ocean floor right now. It was so final, so…anticlimactic. She was gone, just like that. Sollux would never find her body, here or anywhere.

Aradia hadn’t left a body either, after he’d been made to kill her.

“There we are,” the Condesce said softly, setting Sollux down in the sea. The tide crept in until he was waist deep in cool, foamy water. He let his broken hand float in the waves, soothing like unguent. Here, where he could at least stand without having to tread water, it was nice being in the ocean. Despite never being able to get the hang of swimming, Sollux liked the feel of the waves going up and down. It was almost like the ocean was alive, with its own heartbeat, pulsing outward across the whole planet.

“How _did_ you get yourself so filthy?” the Condesce fussed, reaching down and pulling his bloodied shirt off him in an impossibly swift motion. She tossed it to the shore. Sollux found himself incredibly grateful to her for that, for whatever reason…at least he’d still get it back.

He was momentarily startled by the feel of something slimy around his ankle, only to quickly realize it was just the Condesce’s tentacle again, holding him tightly but not uncomfortably.

“Hmm….” She gently prodded the long-since-scabbed injury on his forehead. “This ought to be cleaned out.” Standing, the water only came to right above her knees. She knelt down on the ocean floor to bring herself level with him.

“Hold your breath, little one, I’ve got to put you under.” She giggled at the hesitation in his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry, we’re not playing our game this time. I’ll let you up, I promise.”

So he took in a deep breath and let the Condesce push his head underwater, and true to her word he was back above the surface in barely a second. The saltwater invaded the open wound on his head and he sucked in air through his teeth as the Condesce rubbed it with her fingers. Once that was done to her satisfaction, she pushed him under yet again, and then began to comb her fingers through his hair, which had matted from his bleeding horn. She barely spoke to him as she worked, wholly focused on her task.

Sollux let her do whatever she wanted. If she told him to move his head one way, he moved it. If she wanted him to submerge, he submerged. Every time he came back up she would wipe away the saltwater from his eyes before letting him open them. She scrubbed away every last bit of blood and sweat and dust and whatever else had accumulated on his body…but never once did she try to touch him again, the way she had before. It was a relief, but suspicious. Sollux had no doubt she’d try to do it again, but he didn’t know when, or how…so he tried to relax, just let her clean him up the way she wanted to, and for the first time in hours, wasn’t afraid.

“There,” the Condesce said finally, standing up to inspect her work. She reached down and brushed a bit of Sollux’s hair into place. “Now you’re so sparkling clean and adorable!” She kissed him on the forehead and patted his head.

“Thank you, Empress,” he said. The correct thing to say.

“Your level of cleanliness is something you have to maintain. I’ll be happy to help you with it in the future.”

 _I’ve taken a fucking bath before you patronizing bitch…I guess you’re not the Condescension for nothing…._

She extended a hand to him. “Come along, let’s go back in.”

He took it, and they waded back up to the shore. He waited until she let go of his hand before he reached for his shirt and put it back on.

“I imagine if we received some visitors today, we’re certain to have more tomorrow,” she said musingly.

“…Empress?”

“Hmm?” She turned to face him, eyes wide, surprised that he would initiate a conversation and desperately curious to know what he could have to say. “Yes, my little one?”

“Those…the trolls inside,” he said. He grabbed onto her hand. He wasn’t sure why. “You’re not going to…let them…do anything to me, are you?”

The Condesce tilted her head to one side and frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean….” He racked his brain for a way to put into words what he was afraid of, but to say it in a way that she would like. “I only…belong…to _you_ , don’t I?”

The Empress’s expression softened and she looked as though she might cry from how sweet that had been. “Oh Sollux,” she exclaimed, pulling him close and hugging him tight against her. “Of course, of _course_ , you are my only, you are my little honey-blooded wriggler and I _do_ not share.” She giggled. “I have never shared. Of course, sweet thing, of course what we have is special.”

 _Okay good, she’s happy, if I can keep her like this she might trust me…._

Sollux wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as if he meant it. “I’m sorry for mithbehaving before,” he said, hoping and hoping she couldn’t tell how fake it was.

“Of course you are, sweetness, of course you are. But Sollux?”

He tensed. “Yes?”

“I do need you to do something for me.”

“…Anything.” _I’m saying these things so she won’t kill me just say what she wants to hear so she’ll let you live_

“You and I _are_ special, but those seatrolls inside? They’re going to help us. And you are going to do everything they tell you. Because you’re going to be my new Helmsman, and they’re going to make you ready for it.”

Sollux’s blood went cold. The prospect of meeting the same fate of his ancestor had been a distant horror, one that could effectively scare the shit out of him but nothing that the Condesce could manage on her own. But the adults working on her ship right now… _they_ could manage it. They knew how to wire him up, make him the new system, fucking _install_ him, he thought grimly.

He’d _be_ her ship. She’d have everything she could possibly need to take control of Alternia again if he could make it functional. He’d become a machine, a program, a code. He’d be her prisoner forever.


	10. Chapter 10

Maybe the fact that he went back inside should have proven, unalterably, that he was a coward. The fact that he didn’t turn and run, that he wasn’t brave enough to gamble his life on one last escape attempt, made him sick. He considered it the entire way back to the ship, which in reality wasn’t far, but was far enough for all the possibilities to tumble through his head over and over and over.

But the courage never came up quick enough. They were back inside, the door was closed, and the fresh sea air was replaced by scents of stagnant water and old death. There was the distant noise of the seatrolls arguing, but Sollux ignored them. The thought of having to deal with them soon made his stomach seize up with nausea. Absently he realized he hadn’t eaten at all since leaving his communal hive stem yesterday. Maybe the Condesce would just let him die of starvation. At least then he wouldn’t be trapped as the ship’s engine.

Maybe he wouldn’t even _need_ to eat anymore once he was…converted. The thought did nothing to relieve his sickness.

The seatrolls stopped their arguing as the Condesce and Sollux approached them. Sollux took a real look at them for the first time. The two bigger ones were male, and the smallest was female. The male seatrolls had long, jagged horns not dissimilar to Eridan’s, while the female’s were smooth, with a slight inward spiral to them. Their eyes all reflected the same shade of magenta.

“Now you must forgive me, I am usually such an excellent hostess, but I have neglected to introduce my visitors to you, Sollux. This is Turisas—” she pointed to the tallest seatroll “—Asag—” the second male “—and Tiamat.” The female. “They saw my ship fall from the sky and simply couldn’t wait to come find us.”

Sollux didn’t say anything. They were all staring at him, the two males smiling as if bursting with anticipation to start readying him to be the Helmsman, while the female’s face remained impassive. The Condesce pulled Sollux over to stand in front of her, and set both of her hands atop his head.

“This is my new little Helmsman,” she said with pride. “His name is Sollux.”

The one named Turisas frowned and looked him up and down, as if inspecting a piece of hardware. “It’s just a grub, Empress. Is it even that good a psionic?”

“Oh, he’s more than good! My old Helmsman is this one’s ancestor, so he’s just the perfect little fit. There will be no trouble using him as a replacement.”

“Is that so?” He grinned. The answer was apparently satisfactory. Sollux found himself trying to shrink back into the Condesce’s dress, as if she would actually give a fuck about protecting him.

“I know you’ve only just arrived, but I would like to have him ready as soon as possible,” the Empress said. The way she said it implied that it was not exactly a suggestion. “He’s so helpful, he’s gone ahead and done quite a bit of work for you and taken out the old engine.”

 _By engine you mean the chewed-up corpse of my fucking ancestor, don’t you?_ Inwardly, he sneered. Or at least, he had intended for it to be inward….

“Looks like he has a little bit of an attitude,” said Tiamat, speaking for the first time. Sollux felt his heart stop.

“Sollux…” the Condesce said warningly. She put her hand under his chin and tilted his head up to look her in the face. “What did we talk about earlier?”

“I-um…I’m sorry, Empreth.”

There was a beat of silence, and then the three seatrolls erupted in howls of laughter. Even the Condesce began giggling at him. His speech impediment was evidently the most hilarious fucking thing the adults had ever heard in their life, and as they fell over themselves laughing, mocking the way he had said her name, Sollux found himself wishing he could actually die from the humiliation. He felt the heat rising in his face and he was starting to sweat almost as fucking bad as Equius. Eventually, after what felt like hours, the laughter stopped, but they were still looking at him like a joke.

“He’s really very sweet,” the Empress said, slowly running the back of her hand over his cheek. “But I’d like to make one thing clear before you begin.”

Her change in tone caught their attention and cleared the last of the amusement from their faces.

“We are understood that you are handling royal property, yes? I want him returned in the exact condition I am giving him in. That’s not to say that you may not discipline him, if needed—remember our talk about discipline, Sollux?”

He nodded, keeping his eyes averted from the seatrolls. “I do.”

“Let’s try to keep our behavior…quadrantly appropriate, shall we?”

Sollux didn’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified when he saw Tiamat’s face fall when she caught the Empress’s meaning. The other two simply nodded.

“Excellent! Oh, this is so exciting. Anyway, you may have him for a few hours. I believe I’ll go retire to my respiteblock for a while, I’ve worked up quite a fatigue.”

“Of course, go have your rest, Empress,” Turisas said.

The Condesce pushed Sollux forward, and he was completely exposed. She left without so much as a backward glance towards him, and then she was gone, completely disappeared to some other part of the ship he’d never find. And—horrible though it was—he desperately hated to see her go. He wanted to call out to her, beg her not to leave him here, say that she couldn’t leave him, couldn’t abandon him here….

He was jerked forward as Turisas hooked his finger around one of Sollux’s horns and pulled on it roughly. “Well, _Tholluckth_ ,” he said, eliciting more stupid laughter from his companions, “let’s get started.”

“One of his little horns is broken,” Tiamat pointed out, grabbing it between two fingers and staring, fascinated by the carnage.

“Fucking lowbloods are so clumsy, he probably knocked it against a wall or something,” Asag said, the first time Sollux had heard him speak.

“Maybe we should break the other one to get it symmetrical,” Turisas said, grabbing hold of the unbroken outer horn and beginning to push. Sollux panicked at the memory of agony the first injury had brought him.

“Get the _fuck_ off me!” he shouted. The outburst invigorated him. There was no way he was afraid of these fuckers, not after the Empress, he realized. They couldn’t do anything to him that she hadn’t done worse already…nobody could.

Turisas scowled darkly. “Oh, now we’re gettin’ a mouth, are we, now that Her Imperious Condescension isn’t here to keep you quiet?”

“She told you not to do anything fucking stupid, didn’t she?” Sollux replied.

“Ooooh,” Tiamat said in mock terror. “Maybe we ought to _tell_ on him, Asag. Won’t the Empress like that?”

Asag only rolled his eyes, clearly uninterested in whatever game they were playing. “When you two are finished being fucking idiots, bring him to me. The engine has to be calibrated for his psionic level so his head won’t explode.”

“How about we just set it on high and watch his eyes pop?” Tiamat asked, giggling. “Have you ever seen that, Turisas? Like, you ever taken some lowblood all the way down to the bottom of the ocean? Their body crumples up like a fucking can of soda.”

“Yeah, you go ahead and just try that,” he replied, clearly disgusted by the image. He grabbed onto Sollux’s upper arm and jerked him forward. “Where do you want him, Asag?”

“Right here,” the other troll replied, gesturing to a cleared-off table in the center of their messy work area.

Turisas’ attention was off of him and Sollux made a split-second decision. He kicked out, aiming below Turisas’ belt and trying to ram with his heel as hard as he could. He might have succeeded if Tiamat hadn’t caught him, shouting “HEY!” just in time for Turisas to turn and grab Sollux by the ankle. He yanked him to the floor.

“Oh, what the fuck is this?” the seatroll shouted, exasperated. “You’re pissing me off, now.”

Sollux mustered up as much psionic energy as he could, sending a sharp, stinging pain into Turisas’ hand. The seatroll cursed in a way that would make Karkat proud, releasing his grip on Sollux and glaring with murderous eyes.

“Come on, nooksucker,” Sollux said, getting to his feet. He laughed, invigorated by the brief rebellion. If the Condesce heard about this—and she was sure to—he’d take that hit. But he wasn’t afraid of these seatrolls. They weren’t _her_. He’d play the Empress’s games, he’d deal with her, but he wasn’t fucking _about_ to let the three adults have that same power over him. Let them do their worst, but he wasn’t going to just take it.

And then, just like that, a ripple of pain went through him. Every muscle in his body contracted at once as an intense jolt of electricity invaded him, and he couldn’t even scream as he fell, paralyzed, to the floor.

The next thing he was aware of was lying on a table, his entire body sore and his head throbbing where it had hit the ground. One of the seatrolls—he could barely tell who, his vision was still doubled—appeared over him.

“If you’re done wasting our time already, I suggest we get started.”

Sollux tried to move his arms and legs. They were tied down, as he’d expected. He turned his head and saw Tiamat grinning at him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered something Feferi had told him once. Apparently some seatrolls, once they reached adulthood, acquired a certain degree of bio-electricity, like an eel. It wouldn’t surprise Sollux one bit if it had been the smiling bitch who had just taken him down.

“She’s going to do that every time you piss us off, so how about you just stay quiet for now?”

It actually sounded like a good idea. The electric shock had torn away all his previous energy. Now that he was lying down, for the first time in hours, he remembered that he hadn’t slept in all this time. It felt traitorous, to do nothing right after his first act of defiance, but the simple fact was there was nothing else he could do. He had the fleeting thought of causing so much trouble that Tiamat just electrocuted him to death.

 _Shit, is that what it’s fucking come to? That can’t be the only way out, it can’t…._

It seemed that whatever Asag needed him for, he wasn’t quite ready yet, as there was a long time before anybody paid Sollux any attention at all. Tiamat and Turisas continued to work in the background, doing what they could to reboot the long-dormant computers, patch decayed wiring, and clean out the debris. Sollux could hear Asag working behind him, but couldn’t see a thing. He heard the sound of metal clattering, small pieces like needles, and several wires hitting the floor.

“Wiring a psionic into a ship’s engine is more complicated than just shoving you in the open slot.” Sollux saw the adult troll appear over him, momentarily startled by the sudden conversation. He assumed at first that Asag was simply talking to one of the others, but they were carrying on their own conversation somewhere in the background.

“It’s quite a fascinating process, really,” he continued, producing a long needle attached to red-and-blue wiring. He stared at the metal shaft as he spoke. “The combination of a living creature with a machine, the two working in perfect harmony…you really should be honored.”

“Fuck that,” Sollux replied, his mouth still feeling numb from the electric shock.

Asag smirked. “Well, nobody really asked your opinion, now did they? In any case, since you are the engine, it would be in our best interest that you were…sane.” He grinned, his shark-like teeth not aligning quite right in his mouth. “That’s why this is as much a psychological process as a physical one.”

“…What do you mean?”

“I mean that once you are installed, you will be at once living and not living. In the beginning, it is a bit…overwhelming for a new Helmsman. And if the brain that is piloting your ship is essentially flipping its shit, it’s not exactly conducive. So part of the preparation phase is ensuring that you are used to the…conditions you’ll be living in.”

“And what the fuck does that mean?”

“You’ll see. We’ll get to it. You’re cool with needles, right?” And then effortlessly, expertly, he slid the needle into Sollux’s arm, completely ignoring the drop of blood that seeped out. Sollux shut his eyes not to look at it because no, he was _not_ cool with needles, and he felt more and more entering his arm, going all the way up until Asag was putting some in his neck, and then down the other side of his body in the same spots, and then a few in his forehead, slid just under the skin, and he was doing his damned hardest not to flip the fuck out, because it would probably be more painful to jostle all those wires right then.

He’d been trying not to count, but by the time Asag was done, there were no less than fifty needles with wires sticking out of his body. Sollux kept his eyes focused on the distant ceiling, trying not to move lest he feel the added weight of the wires, trying not to blink because that made the needles on his face move….

 _Okay I’m starting to panic don’t panic don’t think about it, there’ll be a way out of this soon, just try to go to sleep for now or something fuck I’ve got so many FUCKING needles in me_

“How are things progressing?”

Sollux’s eyes flew open and he could have cried, he could have really fucking cried out of sheer joy to hear the Empress’s voice again. It was over now, they had to be done for now, they _had_ to be, she was going to take him away from this, get the needles out, thank god thank GOD she was back.

From his narrow vantage point on the table, he saw the Condesce approach, and awaited her gaze, waited for her to look at him and tell them to let him up, tell them to finish for now, but…she didn’t even look at him. She walked straight past him, not even a greeting, not even a glance.

“They’re going well…” Asag replied, in that distinct tone of voice that indicated it wasn’t exactly the case.

“How soon do you expect he will be ready?”

“Well, Empress…normally I would just need to have the readings, which I’ve got, and then we have the mental prep to do on him, but the fact is, because he’s so young….” His voice faltered, unwilling to give the Condesce anything less than a satisfactory answer.

“Well?” she said, her voice ice cold. “What is the problem?”

“No problem, Your Imperious Condescension, it’s just that since he’s not fully grown he’s not at the same level as your previous Helmsman, and I can calibrate it so that he can pilot your ship just fine, but it won’t be as fast as before until he gets older.”

“Hmm.” She did not sound impressed. “I suggest you start on finding a way to make that possible. I’m so fucking sick of waiting.”

“Yes, Empress. Of course.”

The Condesce began to walk away, and it looked as though she wasn’t going to pay Sollux any mind at all.

“Empress,” he called, just as she was beginning to walk out of sight. She stopped, and turned abruptly, as if his speaking to her was a personal insult. It…actually hurt to have her look at him like that.

“And just what the hell do _you_ want?” she asked, coming closer and leaning over him with absolute impatience in her eyes.

His mouth felt dry. “I just…how much longer? They’ve been working for hours already.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, disgusted and irritated, then grabbed one of the needles in his arm and _pushed_ on it, driving it in so deep he was certain it would rip right out of his skin.

“As long as it takes,” she replied coldly.


	11. Chapter 11

_Why do I fucking care what she says? Holy shit, Sollux, think about what you’re saying. It’s not like I want her attention, I just…she’s the only thing that’s_ familiar _anymore._

Lying there with so many needles in him was getting to be agonizing. But he bore through it, somehow. None of the seatrolls looked at or spoke to him. They were having their own conversations, reduced to dull white noise in his ears. He was starting to think that maybe, realistically, there was no way out. There was no way home. This is how Sollux Captor would be remembered in history, following the footsteps of his ancestor as every troll should strive for, mutilated and turned into a machine.

 _I’m sure you were something else, somebody else, before she did this to you. I’m sure you were somebody great. Probably the best fucking psionic of all time. It’s her fault that I don’t know who you are. That nobody knows._

Something stung in his brain, sharp and jagged like the sting of a bee. Everything shut off. He was blind, deaf, mute, and paralyzed all at once. He felt himself breathing, but there was darkness and silence everywhere else. He felt like screaming, but he was no longer a body, but a consciousness. Desperate, he tried to reach out to feel something, but he had no hands. He strained to hear something, strained to open his mouth and speak, feel, taste _anything_ , but he was a floating sentience, connected to nothing at all.

 _Let me out…_ he tried to scream, but he had no mouth. _LET ME OUT!!_ He was just a thought. A fire of a synapse. He barely existed. He was shattered, torn apart into his most basic pieces. He felt the pain of not breathing, but could not suffocate. He felt the panic of paralysis, but there were no limbs to begin with. He did not see blackness and he did not hear silence. He saw nothing, and heard nothing. There was nothing.

He was dead, but alive to know it. At once living and not living. A machine. A stalled engine.

There were ways to move and see and hear and react, but none of them were there for him to use. He was a battery with nothing to power. Life, inhabiting nothing.

He tried to conjure something, imagine a limb into existence, anything at all for him to use and _feel_ , but it wasn’t even a effort. A consciousness could not expend an effort. A consciousness could simply be. The part of Sollux that was still Sollux had no power. The part that was still Sollux could only imagine screaming, for he could not scream, and remember an emotion that resembled panic, for he could not panic. Not really. He was no longer real.

Like a splash of cool water, color and sound and pain and fear and _life_ flooded back into him. He opened his mouth and took in a huge deep breath. He was on the Battleship Condescension. Seatrolls were trying to turn him into a machine. He was far from home, his matesprit was dead, and he had been torn apart by an ancient, insane Empress.

He laid there a moment, remembering how to feel, how to be a living thing, as the needles were pulled from his skin. He barely felt it, barely noticed it. He was in shock. He was beyond panic, beyond screaming.

Somebody spoke to him. He heard sounds that had no meaning. He was able to move his hands again— _they’re here again, thank god thank god_ —and it came back to him, more and more, that he was a living being, not a machine but a troll, a troll that could see and move and speak. A troll with yellow blood and psionic power, one red eye and one blue eye, who would very soon be dead in every significant meaning of the word.

He turned his head to the side—an overly odd sensation—and saw, standing some ways away, the Condesce. She was talking with a seatroll Sollux wasn’t sure he recognized. She turned her head and saw him looking at her, and she smiled. Sollux raised a shaky hand and reached out to her.

“Empress…” he said, his lips heavy, his tongue obtuse and clunky in his mouth. Was this really how he used to speak? It was a wonder she heard him at all, it was so small, so quiet. “…Empress, help me.”

She paused, considering him, then walked over to the side of his table. She lifted him up to a sitting position gently, then grabbed him completely up into her arms. Sollux threw his arms around her, grabbed her as tightly as he could because she was _real_ , he could feel her and even though she was cold and unpleasant and there was nothing, nothing, _nothing_ about her that was safe or harmless, she was still real. He knew her, she was familiar and reliable.

He was crying and grabbing onto her like he would die to let her go. If they stayed like this, just the two of them, then he’d never have to go back into the machine. He’d never be there again, she’d never hurt him like that again. There was nothing unexpected in her embrace. No surprises in the way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him. No hidden intentions in the way she held him. He _knew_ her. It was enough. It was more than enough.

The Condesce was rocking him back and forth, humming nonsense into his ears. Why would she be anything but ecstatic?

“Please,” he said finally, after he regained a bit of control of his voice, “please, please, please, no, not again, not again.” An almost hysterical mantra, the only thing he could conceive of, the only hope he had left.

The Condesce gently pushed him out from where he’d buried his face in her shoulder. She smiled like the proudest lusus, wiped the messy yellow tears from his face, and kissed him on the forehead.

“That’s enough for today,” she said.

It was the best and the worst thing she could have said. It was over…but only for now. There’d be more. Another time. And then possibly, afterwards, a time that didn’t end. But it was good enough for now. He nodded, and tiredly laid his head against her chest.

“Would you like to come lie down with me?” she asked sweetly.

“Yes,” he replied. A lie, but at the same time the only right thing to say.

She carried him out of the bridge, and he kept his eyes closed, grateful for the chance to lie there in her arms and expend no energy whatsoever. They were heading into a deeper, unseen part of the ship. He didn’t bother to try to memorize where they were going, how to get there or how to get back, because really, what was the fucking point?

When she stopped, when he heard a door open and then close, he opened his eyes. They were in the Empress’s respiteblock.

It was bigger than Sollux’s entire hive, the entire center of it filled with a deep pool of seawater. The block was in complete decay. Every mirror was shattered, the shards of glass sticking in the damp, mildewed carpet. It looked as though a musclebeast had rampaged through it, tearing up furniture, plowing holes through the wall, raging against every last object in sight.

Most of the Empress’s respiteblock was underwater, in the pool, but some remained above ground. One piece in particular that looked largely undisturbed was the recuperacoon against a far wall. It looked almost like she never used it; after all, why would she need the sopor slime? Feferi had told Sollux that the nightmares hardly bothered her, she almost found them pleasant, because she was so used to the things Gl’bgloyb whispered to her. Perhaps it was the same way with the Condesce.

She crossed the room and set him down, carefully, on his feet in front of the cocoon. “I’ll leave you here to have a nap,” she said. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little while, all right, little one?”

It took a moment to process the words. Was she really going to leave him alone? Did she trust him? _Don’t fucking kid yourself, Sollux, you and her both know you can’t do shit._

But it seemed true enough, as she departed the room and shut the door behind her. Sollux stared after her for a while, fully expecting her to come back in, but it didn’t come to pass. He turned to the warm, inviting slime and crawled inside. For a while, at least, he could forget.

He didn’t bother taking off his clothes. He never did, not even at home. Especially during a manic phase, he would stay awake for nights and nights, and when the high eventually wore off he didn’t care if he ruined everything he was wearing. Karkat always made fun of him for it. Kanaya gave him grief for not respecting his wardrobe.

Karkat and Kanaya were probably sleeping quite peacefully right now. Sollux wondered if they were even worried yet. What they would do when the worry hit.

As soon as he settled down in the wonderful, viscous slime, he fell asleep. For a long time, there were no dreams. His brain, it seemed, was still remembering how to function normally. He wasn’t going to dream when he was in the engine, he was sure of it. This may be the last time.

And then he was with Feferi, in the surf, and it was the day she first tried to teach him how to swim.

“Just kind of do this—” she extended her arms to the side and waved them back and forth “—in the water. Kick your feet.”

“If I drown, Feferi—” he said warningly.

“You woooon’t, stop your glubbing!” she replied. “Come on, let’s go a little farther out. I won’t let you drown.”

They went out, far enough that his feet didn’t touch the sand beneath him, and he tried to tread water, but every motion he made only pushed him under the surface, further and further down. He tried to splash, grab her attention, but he saw Feferi’s rippled reflection from underwater and she was giggling. He tried to open his mouth and call for her to grab his hand, pull him up, but he had no air. The surface was disappearing, and he sunk deeper and deeper into the water.

Something was grabbing him from underneath. Pulling him down, pulling him under, and he couldn’t escape. He didn’t know how.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter contains graphic non-con.**

A freezing hand reached through the sopor slime and pulled him into awakening. He was yanked up through the green, soothing sludge, and thrown roughly onto the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now,” came the Condesce’s voice. “You’ve ruined all your clothes.” She sighed. “And just after your bath, too.”

He was fully awake now. The Condesce was above him, one hand holding down his shoulder, looking at his sopor-ridden clothes with disapproval and disappointment. “This simply will not do. You’ll have to remove them this instant.”

“I, uh…” he tried to say, “I’m sorry, I’ll…I’ll clean it up. I will.” There was no fucking way he was taking off his clothes in her respiteblock, he knew what would happen if he did, he knew what she was trying to do, he knew he couldn’t fight her about it….

 _No, no, no, she’s done so much, I’ve done so fucking much for her, she can’t she can’t she can’t_

The look in her eyes only said one thing. Perhaps the only thing she had ever told him, the only truth he needed to remember. _I can._

“What you’ll do,” she said, her voice low as she moved in closer to him, “is obey what I’ve told you.”

 _No no no no no no no_

When he didn’t move right away, she began to unlace his shoes. He shut his eyes tight as she wrenched one free. He dug his fingers into the carpet, soaked with seawater from the pool. The dampness was beginning to soak through his shirt and pants, and he tried to concentrate on that as she removed the other shoe. Slowly, almost playfully, she pulled off his socks. She tossed everything into the saltwater pool behind them, and he heard them splash and sink.

“You can do the rest,” she said.

He inhaled a shuddering breath, keeping his eyes shut tight. _Maybe she won’t. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she won’t._

He reached down and started pulling up his soaked shirt. He sat up, to ease the process, and the Empress watched every last movement he made with wide, attentive eyes. Back at his hive, removing his clothes after sleeping in the sopor slime had been a messy process, but something he dealt with with only the slightest annoyance. Here, it was…perverted. Twisted. Sick.

The shirt was off. Sollux set it in his lap, not wanting to let go of it. But the Empress reached out and took it, like she took everything, and set it beside her without a word. She grinned at him smugly. There was only one thing left, wasn’t there?

The heat rose in his face. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t. She’d have to force him if she wanted it, but he couldn’t do it, not willingly.

“Sooooollux,” the Condesce sang impatiently, tapping her fingers against the floor. “What are we waiting for? How can I clean it for you if you won’t give it to me?”

He had his hands on the waistline of his pants but he couldn’t go further. His hands were shaking. He was fucking terrified.

“Oh,” the Condesce said, as if suddenly understanding. “Oh, you poor dear thing, you’re embarrassed.” She stroked the side of his face, tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear. She smiled without showing her teeth. “You are so very cute when you blush.”

“I’m sorry,” he said preemptively, averting his eyes from her. She wiped off a bit of slime from his shoulder with her finger and set it in her mouth, sucking slowly before dragging it out again.

“What is there to be ashamed of, Sollux? Aren’t we matesprits?”

 _When the FUCK did she decide that?!_ The tremors in his hands got worse. The Empress put hers on top of them to steady him. She leaned in closer until all he saw was her hungry, predatory eyes.

“All the things we’ve shared…” she said, planting a deep, heavy kiss on his lips. “All the times you’ve kissed me, so adorably and so, so sweetly. Isn’t that what flushed quadrants are made of?”

The countless living tendrils that was her hair were rising up, encircling him from all directions without touching, trapping him there, with her. Sollux’s hands were curled into tight fists, even the broken one, and he didn’t care about the pain, didn’t care that it was blinding and sharp to move the wrecked joints that way, because it wasn’t this, it wasn’t her.

“Right, Sollux?” she asked him. Her eyes, with a demonic silver tinge, could engulf him with the look she gave him then. “Don’t you—” she let out her elongated tongue and ran it up the side of his neck “—love me?”

He swallowed roughly, his throat feeling dry and taut. _No,_ he wanted to say, wanted to scream at her. _No, you’re not Feferi. I’m not the Psiioniic._ But he had to say yes. He had to.

So he shut his eyes tight, squeezed his hands together until the pain of the broken fingers ran all the way up his arm, and said, “…Yes. Of course.” The words tasted like vomit on his tongue.

She put her hand behind his head and stroked his hair languidly. “So there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Matesprits see each other this way all the time. You don’t have to feel embarrassed around me.”

Feeling nauseous, he unzipped his pants and they slid off easily, gliding against the slime. The Condesce pulled them off the rest of the way, setting it atop his shirt next to her. Sollux covered his face with his hands, completely humiliated, completely exposed, feeling her eyes taking in every last part of him and _please please let her be satisfied with this let her say it’s enough let her have some fucking pity on me_ ….

“Lie back down, little grub.”

“God, oh god…” he moaned aloud, lying back down on the freezing wet carpet. He felt her place her huge hands on his chest, smearing and dragging her fingertips through the sopor slime. He felt her move herself closer to him; her knees were on either side of his hips and the skirt of her dress hung down to drape over his legs.

He didn’t look out from behind his hands. He couldn’t. He was biting down on his lower lip until it bled, driving his palms into his eyes as if he could force the panicked tears back in, but nothing was happening, she wasn’t _doing_ anything, the anticipation was killing him, why wasn’t she doing anything….

Her lips, cold and numb, were on his neck, and she sucked in bits of his skin to nibble on, lick, leave long, disgusting trails of saliva running down to drip off the back of his neck.

“We’re together now,” she said, moving to the other side. “We’ll be together forever, you and I, Sollux. And I promise I will never—” a quick, sharp nip with her teeth “— _never_ —” she licked up the blood that dripped out “—leave you.”

 _Just bite your tongue, Sollux. Gnaw the fucker off if you have to. Break the rest of your fingers, do anything but DO NOT focus on her. It won’t last, it’ll be over, just don’t think about it, don’t think about her, don’t, don’t, don’t…._

“I’m going to roll you over, all right, sweetness?”

She took both his wrists in one hand and pulled them away from his face. He took in a deep breath and tried to compose himself, but it was a wasted, futile effort. This was happening, no matter what state he was in. She was going to make it happen.

She rolled him over onto his stomach, put her hands on his shoulders and traced the length of his arms, took both his wrists and set them atop each other on his back. He didn’t move them. Behind him he heard the sound of something ripping, and then something warm and slimy was tying his hands. She must have torn his shirt in two, he figured. She wrapped them up tightly, not tight enough to be uncomfortable but enough that he could not move them.

“Just so you won’t hurt yourself,” she said pleasantly. She ran her fingernails lightly down the side of his body, and he tensed at how heavy she felt leaning on him, how he felt like she could crush him at any second, how he could hardly breathe with her pressing down on his back like that….

Her tentacles latched onto his legs, pulling them apart, forcing against his strain and tension, too strong for him, always too strong. And then there was _her_ , unfamiliar and blazing with body heat and so completely fucking paralyzing.

It was slick down there, slick from the sopor slime and from his body’s stupid, mindless reaction to what was happening, and she was pushing, pushing inside like she had snapped the joints of his fingers. Instinctively, he tried to lean himself away from her, but she was bigger, stronger, and all she had to do was grab his shoulder to hold him there and then she was further in.

It was starting to hurt. It didn’t feel good, not in the slightest, it was nothing like when she had touched him before, it was raw and tight and it burned. Every second he thought she couldn’t go farther, she kept on pushing in, she was going to rip him apart if she kept going like this….

“ _Stop!!_ ” he screamed suddenly. He was going to pieces, twisting his hands around in the torn shirt until they were sweaty and raw from the fabric. “God stop, _stop_ ….”

The Condesce put her hand over his mouth and he screamed a muffled scream into it as she began to thrust, over and over and over and faster and faster.

“We have to,” she said in between heavy gasps, “we have to, we’re matesprits now, this is what we do….”

And all of a sudden, there it was: the feeling from before. The maddening, elusive, increasing ecstasy that he recognized, that he’d almost _hoped_ for, that made him sick to feel in the middle of such white hot agony, such disgust, such wrongness. He hated it, but he wanted it, because it was almost there, and he was screaming into her hand, she was exhaling and exhaling and exhaling—

It burst, an explosion of euphoria. Above him, the Condesce sighed out, her breath ragged and loud and so, so satisfied. She dragged her hand from his mouth and over his cheek. She leaned down over him, her shadow covering him completely, and looked him in the eyes. Her entire face was absolutely glowing pink.

“Seeeeee?” she said. “It’s all right. We can do things like that from now on, you and I.”

If she wanted a response, Sollux had no idea what to tell her. He just stared, almost blankly, long past caring about how much he had been crying. There wasn’t enough shame left for that.

She gave him a little peck on the cheek, and then she got up and was out of his sight. He heard a splash, as if she had dived into the seawater pool, but he didn’t and couldn’t give a fuck about why.

 _Fuck. Just…just fuck it all. Fuck everything._

Moments later he felt the Condesce untie his hands and roll him onto his back. She was dressing him now, putting on his pants soaked with seawater and washed clean of sopor slime. The wet socks and shoes went on next, and she even went so far as to tie the shoes for him. She smoothed out the bunched up, nearly ruined shirt. She had only torn it down the front, and she studied it intensely, looking from the split black fabric to Sollux and back again. Finally, she put what remained of it back on him.

“I’ll fix it for you tomorrow,” she told him. She smiled and extended her arms. “Now come here, my honey-blood.”

He raised his eyes lethargically. He hadn’t moved his own body in the last several minutes. He just stayed where he was, staring at her, unable to process anything, unable to conceive of making any decision on his own, having any thought or desire of his own that wouldn’t result in getting hurt.

She turned her palm upward and waved her fingers towards herself. “Come here, Sollux.”

So he crawled over to her. She lifted him up and put him in her lap, combing her fingers through his hair and leaving messy kisses on his forehead. She pulled him in close to her, resting her head on top of his, her tongue stretching out to casually lick his broken horn. Sollux curled himself up tightly, trying to make himself as small as possible. Hiding as much as he could. Doing what little he could to shut her out.

“I’m so happy we’re matesprits, Sollux,” the Empress said. “I was afraid you’d reject me. But I’m glad you feel the same. We’ll be happy together.”

If he hadn’t been so fixated on the floor, if he hadn’t been staring so intently to divert his attention elsewhere, he would never have seen it. He might never have noticed. A small movement. A little sound. Something familiar. Something…crawling on the carpet.

A bee.


	13. Chapter 13

Sollux watched the bee crawl along the carpet, unblinking, as if it would disappear if he diverted his attention for an instant. He prayed silently for it to stay on the ground, that it wouldn’t buzz and take flight, because then the Empress would surely notice it. She’d probably kill it. Smash it in her hands.

So he stayed quiet in her lap, giving no indication that he’d noticed anything at all, and let her continue to rock him, pat his head, hum nonsense melodies into his ear. He hoped the bee would stay where it was, that it wouldn’t fly away, because he wouldn’t be able to deal with that. If it left, he wouldn’t ever find it again, he was sure of it.

Eventually, the Condesce grew quieter and her body grew heavier against his. Her breathing was becoming more regular. She was falling asleep. Sollux waited patiently, he’d wait forever if he had to, but the bee was still there, and he’d keep it in his sights until the Empress had drifted off.

Finally, much later—it didn’t matter how long, it could’ve been years for all he cared—he was certain that she had dozed off. Carefully, more delicately than he’d ever done anything in his life, he wriggled himself out of her grasp. She remained propped up against the recuperacoon, and he hoped she didn’t notice the lack of warmth as he moved away. Already he was thinking up a million excuses to use in case she awoke. But she seemed to be perfectly content to stay where she was…hopefully she’d stay that way.

Sollux turned back to the bee and took a step towards it. It fluttered up into the air, then back down. He moved closer, urging it to move, to fly away, to lead him somewhere. Finally the bee took flight, buzzing around the room in countless circles, then went to the door, skittering underneath the small opening. He opened the door, quickly but silently, and followed it into the hall. He closed the door behind him but did not shut it. He would not risk any more noise.

The echo of the bee’s buzzing filled the entire metallic corridor. Sollux followed it wherever it flew. Sometimes it would perch on a wall, sitting there motionless, until it seemingly remembered where it was headed and went onward again. He didn’t bother trying to remember the way back. It didn’t matter. He just needed to get where this one was going.

Eventually, the bee came to the end of a wrecked, debris-ridden hallway, and flew into a gaping, rotting hole in the wall beside a door. Sollux tried the knob, expecting to find it rusted shut or otherwise locked, but mercifully, as if the universe had suddenly decided to take pity on him, it opened easily. He was greeted by the gentle drone of a humming beehive.

The room, like the rest of the ship, had fallen into complete disarray over the years. Most of what was in here was rotted and dead. Sollux followed the sound of buzzing to a dark, hidden part of the room; it got louder and louder as he approached an overturned table. Leaning down, he peeked underneath, and let out a semi-hysterical laugh at what he found.

It was small, not nearly the size of what he cultivated in his own respiteblock, but it was unmistakable. A silicomb of bees, full of mind honey.

There wasn’t a lot there. How such a small hive of bees had managed to survive in this dead ship for so long was anybody’s guess. It was a rather pitiful amount of honey that they had made, but Sollux could forgive them that. It didn’t take much mind honey for his psionics to flip out.

 _I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe this._ Finally. Finally, something he could use. The Condesce probably didn’t even know about this rogue stash. She might not even be able to find him here.

Suddenly invigorated, Sollux began to sift through the rest of the trash in the room. It looked as though this had once been full of mind honey hives, but time and tide had taken their toll. Weathered wires were everywhere, broken down computers and corroded metal husks, but if one hive had survived, maybe, just maybe, a computer had too. Maybe there was something he could fix, rig just long enough to get onto Trollian, all he needed was to send one message, just one….

He lost count of how many screens he tried to turn on. None responded. Maybe it was too much to hope for. Maybe this was as far as his luck would go, and now he was on his own. Well, whatever. He’d make it work. There really was nothing left to be afraid of anymore.

Screen after screen responded with maybe a flicker, a spark. One even exploded, and he evaded the blast just in time. Eventually, he reached one that seemed in slightly better condition than the others. As he turned on the screen, it flickered, fizzed out, then came back. A bit out of focus, but it was working.

Sollux typed faster than he knew was possible with one broken hand. His mind and fingers were racing, as if the computer would die on him at any second, as if he’d manage to get Trollian up and running only to see it fail on him. _It won’t. It can’t. I’ll get it up, I’ll get it…._

Impossibly, improbably, he was soon staring at the familiar program window. The list of all his friends’ trolltags were there, and he laughed, the mad sound echoing in the tiny room. Below him, the bees buzzed angrily at the disturbance but did nothing else.

\--twinArmageddons (TA) began trolling carcinoGeneticist (CG)—

TA: kk  
TA: are you there

He sat back and waited. He watched the vertical bar in his text window blink incessantly. Nothing happened on the other end.

TA: plea2e  
TA: kk are you there  
TA: really

Maybe Karkat was asleep. Sollux didn’t know what time it was outside. Trollian said he was logged in but he always fucking stayed signed in, it was really irritating of him, and then he would dare to get upset when Sollux didn’t message him when he was really there….

TA: kk  
TA: iim ju2t goiing two talk then  
TA: even iif you’re not there  
TA: becau2e you’ll 2ee thii2 when you wake up  
TA: or get back, or whatever ii don’t have any fuckiing clue nor do ii care  
TA: ii ju2t wanted two 2ay

He stopped. The adrenaline was already dying off and the pain in his hand was coming back tenfold. It was getting harder to type. Seeing his friend’s name on the screen but having no response was hitting him harder than he’d realized. And what was the point of contacting him now anyway? What could Karkat do?

TA: well  
TA: whatever  
TA: ii don’t know iif you notiiced  
TA: but ii haven’t been at home lately  
TA: ff and ii went down two the beach  
TA: for a date

Fuck. It seemed so long ago. How many days? Just one? Two, maybe? Who fucking cared…it was a whole lifetime as far as he was concerned. It wouldn’t be the same again.

TA: iit doe2n’t matter  
TA: you’re gonna thiink ii’m a fuckiing iidiiot  
TA: for 2ayiing thii2  
TA: but ii really

Another pause.

TA: ii really mii22 you  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.

Sollux nearly jumped out of his chair. No way. No fucking way, he’d come all the way down here and come this far and Karkat was answering him, he was _there_ , he was real, thank god thank god maybe it wasn’t over maybe it’d be okay….

CG: HAVE YOU AND FEFERI BEEN FILLING LIKE A MILLION FUCKING BUCKETS OR SOMETHING  
CG: WHERE IN THE SHIT HAVE YOU BEEN  
CG: ERIDAN HASN’T SEEN FEFERI IN LIKE A DAY OR SOMETHING SO HE’S BEEN FUCKING BUGGING THE SHIT OUT OF ME ABOUT IT. ALSO SAID SOMETHING ABOUT YOU NOT BEING AT YOUR HIVE BUT HOW HE KNOWS THAT IS SOMETHING I REALLY DON’T CARE TO DELVE INTO.  
TA: holy 2hiit  
TA: holy 2hiit kk thii2 ii2 for real?  
CG: UM.  
TA: okay ii know you won’t under2tand thii2 but ii can’t fuckiing beliieve you’re really replyiing two this  
CG: ARE YOU OKAY?  
CG: HAVE YOU LOST FLUID IN YOUR THINK PAN OR SOMETHING?  
TA: okay kk  
TA: ii need two tell you 2omethiing  
TA: and you can’t fliip out  
CG: UM…OKAY.  
TA: feferii’2  
CG: WHAT, SOLLUX?  
CG: YOU’RE KIND OF FREAKING ME OUT.  
TA: feferii’2 dead  
TA: iit wa2 my fault  
TA: ii diidn’t protect her. ii diidn’t do anythiing at all really  
TA: but iit happened 2o fa2t and by the tiime ii really proce22ed iit  
TA: ju2t tell eriidan ii’m 2orry  
TA: for fuckiing up at beiing her mate2priit  
CG: HOLY SHIT.  
CG: IS THIS A JOKE? FEFERI’S REALLY DEAD? WHAT HAPPENED?  
TA: she was  
TA: she was murdered  
CG: BY FUCKING WHO???  
CG: AND WHERE DID YOUR DUMBASS 2’S GO?  
TA: it hurts to type  
TA: my hand doesn’t feel good i can’t put in the extra effort right now   
CG: SOLLUX REALLY I’M A LITTLE WORRIED NOW  
CG: STOP WORRYING ME YOU FUCKING DUMBASS AND TELL ME WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE AND WHAT’S GOING ON  
TA: it doesn’t matter where i am  
TA: i’m pretty sure i can’t get home again  
TA: i think the only way out is to do something drastic  
TA: so don’t worry about me anymore  
TA: i’ll be okay

Did he really believe that? He stared at his own words on the screen, wondering why he had said it.

CG: SOLLUX.  
TA: what  
CG: CAN YOU TURN ON YOUR VIEWPORT FOR ME?  
TA: no  
TA: i can’t deal with that right now i’m sorry  
CG: YEAH WELL I CAN’T DEAL WITH YOUR VAGUE BULLSHIT  
CG: PLEASE?  
TA: what do you expect to see  
CG: I EXPECT TO SEE THAT YOU’RE OKAY AND YOU’RE ALIVE  
CG: I DON’T FUCKING KNOW  
CG: JUST…I’VE BEEN A LITTLE WORRIED, OKAY?  
TA: …fine.

Sollux fiddled around with some of the settings. The only reason Karkat even had the viewport function was because Sollux had set it up for him. He wasn’t even sure if a computer this old would be compatible with it…but it seemed like things hadn’t stopped taking pity on him, and he was able to manage it well enough in a few minutes.

TA: okay  
TA: i really don’t need you flipping the fuck out  
TA: but i’m going to turn it on, okay?  
CG: WHATEVER.  
CG: JUST DO IT PLEASE?

He turned on the viewport. Almost instantly, he saw Karkat, sitting in his respiteblock, staring intently at the screen as though it had offended him on a personal level. Sollux tried to force a smile, but it didn’t come, and he couldn’t make it come. Karkat stared for a while, his familiar, perpetually ornery eyes taking in the remains of his friend’s image, studying, putting together pieces, letting the rage and the concern and the raw emotion build up.

“Sollux,” Karkat said, his voice somewhat distorted with missing frequencies. “What…the fuck happened to you?”

“I’m sorry,” Sollux said. He wasn’t sure why. That was just the go-to phrase these days. Apologize. Be sorry for being whatever he was. Be used to not being good enough.

“…Where the hell are your glasses? What the _fuck_ happened to your horn?”

Sollux laughed and wiped at his eyes. It didn’t matter whatever Karkat was saying. He was there, he was talking to him, and something from “before” still existed just the same.

“I, uh…” Sollux said in between hysterical giggles. “I lost my glasses. And my horn…my horn…got broken.” The laughter subsided. Even if Karkat was there, even if the sight of Karkat could make him forget, it would still be true. The reality of everything would still be true. “…She broke it.”

“Who?” Karkat said. It almost didn’t sound like a question. When Sollux didn’t answer right away, Karkat’s natural rage exploded. “Who the _fuck_ did that to you, Sollux?!”

“It doesn’t matter.” The laughter was gone. He was furiously rubbing his eyes to keep Karkat from seeing his tears. “It really doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me. Sollux….” Some of Karkat’s rage dissipated and was replaced by the soft voice that so few people got to ever hear. Sollux missed hearing that. He hadn’t in such a long time…Karkat wasn’t always yelling, wasn’t always upset. That rare, hidden part of him was always Sollux’s favorite.

“I’m sorry,” Sollux said again. “Don’t worry about me. I just wanted to say…well, like…I just wanted to talk to you again. I don’t even remember the last conversation we had. I wanted to make sure that…I remember this one.”

Karkat opened his mouth like he was about to start spouting some inflammatory profanity, but he stopped, stared at the screen, sighed and rubbed the back of his head agitatedly. “We were arguing,” he said eventually. “Like usual. I’m sure we decided that we weren’t friends anymore for like the fifth fucking billionth time. I’m sure it was something really fucking stupid. I don’t remember.”

Sollux smiled in spite of himself. He didn’t remember either. But it had probably been along those lines.

“Hey,” Sollux said suddenly. “Do you remember…we were like five sweeps old or something. We were moirails for like…half a sweep or something. Do you remember?”

Karkat’s eyes widened and Sollux was sure he saw a blush on his cheeks. “Yeah,” he mumbled, averting his eyes. “I remember. What about it? It was fucking horrible.”

“No it wasn’t,” Sollux insisted. “We were just experimenting, weren’t we? And we stopped because…because we realized that hey, being a moirail actually takes some fucking work. But…you were really good at it. I was the one who sucked. You always left me messages asking if there was anything I wanted to talk about…and I never answered them.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Karkat asked, looking Sollux in the eye again, but the blush hadn’t left his face. “You’re not answering me, Sollux. Where are you? What’s going on?”

“I just…kinda feel like an asshole. Because I know you have a real moirail now…Gamzee’s your moirail…but I want to ask you…I wish….”

“Okay stop.” Karkat held up his hand. “Shut the fuck up. Tell me. From the fucking beginning. What happened.”

Sollux took in a breath, and let it out, and it was quivering. He fucking hated it. “You’re gonna think I’m a fucking wriggler.”

“No. I won’t.” Karkat’s face was entirely sincere. He was angry, but controlled. “Tell me, Sollux. I’ll listen.”

“…It’s the Empress.”

Karkat’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “You mean…Her Imperious Condescension? What about her?”

“She’s here. She came back to Alternia. And she…her fucking ship, Karkat…it crashed on the beach. And she…she killed…shefuckingkilledFeferiKarkat!!” He let all the words spill out at once, as if he could make it somehow a little less real by blurting it out. And shit, here came more of those fucking tears, he was so sick of them, his face hurt so much already from all the screaming and everything else….

But Karkat didn’t say anything. He didn’t interrupt. Just waited, attentive.

“I think…well, I _know_ …my ancestor was here, Karkat. Some troll called the Psiioniic. The Condesce knew him. She had him. And I mean like…he powered her ship or some shit…he was her fucking _engine_ , because I guess he was such a powerful psionic, but he died, he died somehow, and she saw me and knew I was his descendant and she wants me to be him, Karkat, I think she fucking thinks I _am_ him, and she’s fucking crazy, Karkat, she’s lost her absolute fucking mind, and she did this—” he grabbed onto his broken horn “—she did this because she’s fucking crazy, and she doesn’t know I’m gone right now but when she finds out I’m in so much deep shit, Karkat, I really am, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know, I don’t know….”

Sollux stopped, taking in a breath, trying not to get embarrassed from the spectacle he was making of himself, but one look at Karkat’s face told him it was okay, he wasn’t judging him, he was only listening, and he was _concerned_ , he cared, somebody did, somebody cared about him….

“I, uh…I found this bee,” Sollux said. “And I followed it here. That’s how I found this computer to talk to you. But the bee, it…it’s part of this whole hive, and it makes mind honey.”

“Don’t eat that shit. You know what it does to you.”

“I think…I think I have to. I don’t have any other way to fight her, Karkat. And even though…even though she fucking ruined me worthe than I thought…I keep thinking about how I can’t juth let mythelf go out that way. I mean, I never even knew I had an ancethtor, and it feels kind of shitty to say this, but I don’t want…I don’t want to die like him. I don’t want to be an engine, I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“Sollux, don’t.” Sollux had never seen Karkat look frightened before, but at that moment there was nothing but pure, raw fear in his eyes. “Don’t. Whatever this bitch did to you it _cannot_ be worth killing yourself over. Seriously, if this is one of your fucking depressive phases then you _know_ it’s not worth it. You’ll snap out of it, you will.”

“This is only a _million FUCKING timeth worsthe_ than thome shitty _depressive phase_ , Karkat!!” Sollux screamed at the screen. “You have no idea…you have no _fucking_ idea so don’t fucking lecture me, okay? Believe me, I want to act like it’ll go away, like I can just come back home again and everything will be all right, but…it fucking won’t, okay?”

So that was it. The finality of it. It wouldn’t be all right. It wouldn’t ever go away. The Condesce would be with him forever and ever, just like she’d always wanted, just like she’d promised, one way or another. He’d have his broken horn forever. The fact that he wasn’t anymore untouched…true forever. Never erasable.


	14. Chapter 14

There were footsteps in the hallway beyond the door. Shit, there were _fucking_ footsteps outside. Sollux whipped his head around and the panic started to well up bad enough that his vision went double.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck SHIT SHIT!” he swore under his breath. “Motherfuck, motherfuck, Karkat….”

“What, what’s happening?”

Screams outside. Somebody was fucking enraged. The Condesce. She had awoken and found him gone. How she followed him all the way down here, he had no clue. For all he knew he had left a trail of some sort, stupidly, in his blind and mad quest to follow the lone bee, he had led her right to him.

Sollux grabbed the husktop and cradled it close to his chest. He went down underneath the table, pressed himself up against the wall as far as he could, and hugged the screen of the computer like it was Karkat himself.

“Shit, she’s gonna find me, Karkat, she’s gonna find me,” he whispered into the computer.

“Sollux,” Karkat said, his voice steady, an anchor, something to hold onto. “It’s all right. I’m right here, okay?”

“It’s not,” Sollux insisted. The pounding was getting louder, she’d be in this room sooner or later, and fucking _shit_ he had forgotten to grab mind honey from under the other table— “It’s not, it’s not.”

“Hey, listen.” Karkat’s hand was against the screen, and he was leaning closer. “Listen, Sollux. Whatever you have to do, fucking do it, all right? This isn’t you, okay? It’s seriously freaking me the fuck out to see you losing your shit right now, because you don’t ever do that. I don’t want to think about what she did to make you this way, but this isn’t you. This isn’t Sollux fucking Captor.”

“Karkat stop talking so _fucking_ loud.”

There was a pound at the outside wall loud enough to make him jump, and he clutched the husktop closer, wishing it were Karkat right next to him, wishing the heat from the machine was really his friend, but it wasn’t, Karkat was miles and miles away and he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t do anything except watch and offer empty words of consolation.

“ _Sollux!!!_ ” came the Empress’s absolutely infuriated voice from the outside corridor. She pounded the wall again, and then again, and then the door to the little dusty room flew open.

Sollux put his hands over his mouth to stifle his almost hyperventilated breathing, and stared at Karkat on the screen, pleading with him to be quiet. Karkat nodded, and gestured that he was turning off the microphone, so nothing would seep through unwanted. And then it was just silence, and the two of them staring at each other, right there but so far away, so powerless to do anything but sit there.

“Where did you go, my little Helmsman?” The Condesce’s singsong voice rang through the tiny chamber, bouncing off all the walls, digging deep into every corner and crevice. “It’s so terribly _rude_ to leave your fucking matesprit without _saying anything!!_ ”

She began overturning tables and furniture, and Sollux prayed she wouldn’t find the beehive, she wouldn’t kill them and destroy all the mind honey, he needed it, she couldn’t touch it, she couldn’t….

“I wake up,” she said, pacing the room, “after such a beautiful moment we shared, and you’ve _left_ me!! Do you think I fucking appreciate that!? That you treat me like some fucking whore that you can leave when you’re done?!”

 _Don’t find me. Don’t find me. Just fucking leave. Just leave, leave, LEAVE, please, realize I’m not here, just try another room, please, please, please…._

A silent tap at his screen. Sollux glanced down and Karkat was looking at him with those steady eyes again. He mouthed something slowly.

 _Don’t panic. It’s okay._

Sollux curled up tighter with the husktop, pulling it as close to him as he could, holding his breath to keep from making a single fucking sound, from shifting the air in the room just the slightest bit….

 _SHIT_ she was walking right in front of his hiding place now. He could see her shoes pacing in front of him, inches away, he could reach out and touch her, all she had to do was bend down to check this hiding spot and she’d have him, she’d have him, he’d have to leave Karkat behind and that would be it, it would really be over then….

Karkat tapped at the screen again. Sollux wiped his eyes, stared at his friend, who didn’t have a single damn clue what was going on but refused to leave, refused to let him sit there by himself and suffocate in paralytic fear.

 _Listen to me,_ Karkat mouthed, slow enough for Sollux to understand every word. _You will come home. You will be okay._

 _I’m sorry,_ was all Sollux could think of. They were the only appropriate last words he wanted to leave Karkat with. But he couldn’t say them, couldn’t even mouth them silently, because he couldn’t move, didn’t want to make even the hint of a sound. Maybe this was why he had found the working computer so easily, maybe this was why Karkat had just happened to be there to answer him. He was just being pitied in his last moments. The universe just wanted to give him a chance to say goodbye, not to save himself.

The Condesce’s tentacles began to feel around underneath his table. He shied away from there, trying to become smaller, trying to disappear as if he actually could. The Condesce’s pacing shoes went still, and her voice silent. Slowly, so maddeningly slowly, she bent down, her fingers appearing on the underside of the table as she grabbed the edge. Her face appeared, her eyes blazing fire and ice and unreadable thoughts. She didn’t say or do anything at first. Sollux clutched the husktop closer to his chest, madly muttering, “Go away go away go away….”

“What are you hiding from, little wriggler?” the Condesce said. There was a terrifying flatness in her voice. He couldn’t muster up the strength to look at her; he kept his eyes focused on Karkat, who was staring, unyielding, at him through the screen. Assuring Sollux he was still there, he still existed, he hadn’t left him.

“I know it’s dark in this room,” she continued, speaking slowly and meticulously, “but there’s nothing out here to be afraid of. They’re just shadows, my darling. They can’t hurt you.”

She reached in and put her hand around his wrist, and he flinched as if her skin was hot iron. To his initial surprise, she recoiled, drawing back, but then a low growl sounded in her throat and she latched onto his ankle. She yanked him out from underneath the table, and he dropped the husktop, the computer landing facedown in the debris. The Condesce either did not notice it or did not care.

“ _Karkat!!_ ” Sollux screamed as he dropped the computer and was dragged across the dusty floor. As if Karkat was really there, as if there was a hand for him to reach out and grab…as if Karkat had ever really had any power at all.

The Condesce gripped his neck like a vice and hoisted him upward, slamming him violently against the wall.

“It really hurts my fucking feelings, Sollux,” she hissed, her voice shaking with both sadness and rage. “How come you don’t want to stay with me? How come you always try to leave? Am I going to have to keep you tied up like a stupid musclebeast?” She took hold of one of his wrists and stroked it playfully. “How would these adorable little hands look, all dressed up in chains? I’d get you some red and blue ones. You like those colors, don’t you, my _precious,_ —” she raised her hand and brought it crashing against Sollux’s face “— _only,_ —” again she struck him “— _lovely,_ —” again, harder, and he felt blood on his tongue “— _little Sollux?!_ ”

 _Mind honey,_ he thought, over and over. _I have to get the mind honey. I have to. It doesn’t matter what she does if I can just get to it._ He tried to ignored her raging, tried to remember exactly where in the room he had seen the hive, tried to catch a glimpse of just one stray bee flying about. He knew he hadn’t imagined it. It was around somewhere, it was close, he just couldn’t remember if it was that corner or that corner….

The Condesce lifted him up and threw him, brutally hard, to the floor. He blacked out for an instant as his head struck the messy debris. Once he awoke, he tried to refocus as quickly as he could, because he was out of her grasp for a precious few seconds, he had to find the silicomb hive, he had to remember where in the hell he had seen it….

A bee landed in front of his face. It quickly alighted and took off again, buzzing into the sanctuary of its miniature hive. Of course, of _course_ , there it was, he remembered seeing it there now; Sollux stretched his hand forward and touched it, clenched his fingers tightly and torn off a tiny, almost inconsequential piece of the hive.

Immediately after the Empress grabbed his hair and pulled him upward. He yelped at the sudden pain, and then he was staring her directly in the face. She didn’t loosen her grip on him, even continued to pull so that he was lifted ever so slightly off the floor.

“Just how exactly are you going to say you’re sorry for this insult, Sollux?” the Condesce asked. She raised her eyebrows and tapped her foot impatiently. “Any ideas? I’ll let you decide what you want to do.”

Sollux clenched the piece of honeycomb in his hand as tight as he could without crushing it. She couldn’t see that he was holding something. If she did she would take it, and he’d never get another chance.

 _Come on, just put the whole damn thing in your mouth, Sollux, why can’t I do it, what the fuck am I waiting for…._

For a moment he considered…there were still more adult seatrolls in the upper level, and who knew how many more had shown up after them. The bridge would still be on its way to being functional, there would still be the possibility of being made the battleship engine. They didn’t need the Condesce in order to do that to him. Sollux wanted to destroy the entire thing, kill all of these fuckers in one fell swoop, make sure the ship crumbled and could never be used again….

One more second of looking into the Condesce’s eyes was all he needed to make his decision.

He raised his hand, opened it, brought the wax forward to pop it in his mouth—

—the Condesce intercepted his wrist as if she had been expecting it. Sollux’s heart dropped into his stomach. He tried to resist her, tried to grab the honeycomb with his other hand but her tentacle wrapped around that one too, and no amount of strain or struggle could move her in the slightest.

“Oh,” she said, her voice soft, a mockery of curiosity. “What’s this?” She easily plucked the honeycomb from Sollux’s hands and he watched his last and only and most insane hope get smashed in between her fingers.

“No…” he moaned pathetically. “No, don’t take it….”

“What do I keep trying to tell you, Sollux?” She put her index finger underneath his chin, dragging her fingernail lightly across his skin. “You’re mine. All mine.”

The utter failure of the entire endeavor struck him like a fucking sledgehammer to the head, and the shock was too great for any reaction whatsoever.

“I really will have to rethink the leniency with which I’ve treated you,” the Condesce sighed, her voice all disappointment and regret. “You and I are going to go back upstairs now. And I want you to think about how you’re going to let me know you’re very— _very_ —sorry. Do you understand, Sollux?”

 _Holy shit could I be any more of a fucking failure could I be any more fucked in the head for doing this…._

Sollux wondered if Karkat could still hear what was happening through the husktop, or if by dropping it he’d completely destroyed the connection. He didn’t want to draw the Condesce’s attention to the unexpected third presence in the room, didn’t want her knowing a single fucking thing about Karkat or anybody he cared about.

With her hand gripping his wrist tightly, the Condesce began to lead him out of the room. Struck by a sudden, lightning-quick burst of insane determination, Sollux tried to run back in, tried to go back to the hive, he didn’t care if she saw it, if he could just get to it, he couldn’t _give up_ ….

Only mildly annoyed, she effortlessly grabbed him up off his feet, her tentacles easily securing his arms and kicking legs. At his defiant, desperate screams, she just pressed her hand over his mouth, and carried him away, away from the mind honey, from the bee that had tried to save him, away from Karkat.


	15. Chapter 15

About halfway back to the Empress’s respiteblock, Sollux stopped struggling in the hopes that she would let him down, let him walk on his own. But she did no such thing. She carried him all the way back, not looking at him, not speaking to him. Somewhat to his surprise, he had ventured quite a ways away from the room. He never would have found his way back on his own.

Finally, they returned. The Condesce slammed the door behind them as she stepped back inside, dumping Sollux on the soaked carpet. He stayed where he was, not sure what she expected of him, not wanting to invite any more unnecessary anger.

“Well?” she said after a brief silence. “Have you given it any thought?”

He sat up slowly, warily, watching to see if she approved of that action. He had no energy left to do much else. She _said_ she wanted him to think of his own punishment, but she was going to do whatever the hell she wanted anyway, wasn’t she? What was the point of playing that game?

“I, uh…” he said softly, if just to respond at all. He didn’t know what she wanted to hear. She’d tell him soon enough, one way or another. He started with what he knew he ought to say.

“I’m thorry I left without telling you. But…I…didn’t want to wake you.” That was close enough to the truth.

She stared at him sharply, unblinking. “It’s vexing,” she said finally. “It’s truly vexing, Sollux. The amount of trust I’ve put in you, and you treat it—you treat _me_ —with such shameful disrespect. Now tell me, how do you plan on atoning for this grievous misstep?”

“I’ll…I’ll do anything you thay.”

She shook her head. “That you will. But tell me with some fucking specificity, Sollux. What will show the depths of your regret to me?”

Sollux’s eyes searched the room for some idea. She clearly wasn’t going to let him out of this one easily, but maybe if he could be smart about it, it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe it could even be to his advantage. What would satisfy her, but not be unbearable?

Well, hell. He could take just about anything now, couldn’t he?

“Y-you could lock me up thomewhere,” he said quietly. “Put me in a room. I’ll think about what I’ve—how much I hurt you. And how thorry I am.”

The Condesce actually looked like she considered it for a moment. Isolation might be the closest thing to a relief Sollux was likely to get. But she wasn’t saying anything. He couldn’t read her thoughts.

“I really…” he ventured, “I really don’t like dark thpaces. If you put me thomewhere dark, I wouldn’t ever hurt you again. I promith—”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” the Empress snapped suddenly. “I don’t need to listen to your disgusting rambling lisp.”

Actually embarrassed, Sollux shut his mouth quickly.

“You’re not thinking hard enough,” the Condesce said, beginning to pace back and forth. “I’ve tried, over and over, to discipline you properly. You continue to behave like an upstart wriggler despite these things. So it becomes obvious to me that simple physical punishment is not enough.”

She stopped her pacing and narrowed her eyes coldly at him. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. Tilting her head just a bit to the side, she said:

“Who’s Karkat?”

Sollux felt all the blood drain out of his face. He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out, he just sat there, slack-jawed, mute, dizzy, and the Condesce grinned with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Unable to speak, Sollux only shook his head.

“You may have thought I didn’t notice,” she said, kneeling down slowly to bring herself face-to-face with him. “But I heard you call out that name. I’m curious, Sollux. I want to know all about my matesprit.” She ran the back of her fingers over his cheek. “Who’s Karkat?”

He shook his head vigorously. “Nobody,” he insisted. “Nobody, I didn’t thay that, I didn’t thay anybody’th name.”

Her hand moved up to the top of his head. She held one of his unbroken horns delicately, dangerously, in between her thumb and forefinger. She didn’t speak. She only watched his face.

“You’re mithtaken,” he insisted, heart racing with every moment of her inaction. “I didn’t thay anything. I juth…I juth thcreamed, ith all.”

She gripped the horn tighter and pulled Sollux’s face closer to hers. The look on her face told him she knew he was absolutely full of shit.

“Are you saying,” she inquired, “that I am a liar? That I heard nothing?”

“No!” he insisted. “No, I’m not thaying that, I juth…Karkat’th nobody. He’th nobody. I don’t even like that nookthucker.”

She smiled and released her hold on his horn. She took both his hands in hers, rubbing her thumb over the top of them gently. “Shall we invite Karkat to come visit? I want to meet everybody that’s important in my matesprit’s life.”

“No,” he said, a bit too quickly. “No, no, no.” It sounded too much like begging. She had him, and she knew it. She didn’t avert her eyes as she brought his hands up to her lips and set a delicate kiss on his fingers. She opened her mouth and licked them from the fingertips to just above his wrist, smiling the whole while.

“Pleath, I….” He racked his brain for a way to stop this, to stop what she was thinking.

Sollux leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips, really trying, really wanting her to think it was real. Forcing himself not to gag, he cautiously pushed his small tongue past her lips. She opened them, letting him inside, and he didn’t know what to do after that. She bit down playfully on his tongue, nipping it with her sharp teeth. He tried, really tried, to kiss her the way she kissed him, but he just wasn’t sure, he didn’t know how, didn’t know what she wanted. Eventually he ended it, pulling away from her as slowly as he could, the way she did, making sure his lips lingered as long as possible on hers so she couldn’t tell how disgusting it felt.

“I don’t want…” he said, swallowing hard, “I don’t want anybody elth here. I juth…want it to…be…you and…and me.”

He was sealing his fate with those words. He knew it. Every sound out of his mouth was a further step into darkness.

 _I don’t care,_ he thought. _I don’t care, let her focus on me, let her only want me, she can’t have Karkat, she can’t have any of them. Let her only want me._

She was regarding him with a bit of pleasure, a bit of satisfaction, but she still wasn’t saying anything. Sollux carefully wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace, resting his chin on her shoulder as he squeezed her cold body as firmly as he could. She didn’t hug him back.

“I don’t want anyone around…exthept…you. We’re…we’re….” _Fuck just say it it doesn’t matter anymore just say it she wants to hear it she wants you to admit it…._ “We’re matethprits.”

The Condesce returned the embrace then, pressing him close against her chest…and for a second it felt like she actually did love him. She eventually took him by the shoulders and pulled him away. She smiled at him warmly, then playfully poked the tip of his nose with her index finger.

“Apology accepted,” she said. She watched his face for signs of a reaction, then giggled. “That was quite good, little one!”

Not quite sure what she meant by that, Sollux responded by forcing up a tiny little smile.

“Ah!” the Condesce exclaimed with glee. “There it is! Finally, a smile on my shy little grub! I knew I’d see one eventually…oh, how absolutely darling you are when you smile!” She laughed with delight and clapped her hands once.

 _Holy shit did it actually work…did I actually make her happy?_

“You’re so sweet,” she said, ruffling his hair. “You really do know how to place me in a difficult position. But part of being an empress is making good on your promises, Sollux. Oh, don’t look so sad, honey-blood! You knew I would still have to punish you for what you did.”

She stood up and began to head for the door.

“Wait,” Sollux said, his chest seizing up, his heart skipping several beats at once. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

The Condesce turned back and regarded him with amusement. “Why, I’m going to extend an invitation to our mutual friend Karkat to join us. Wouldn’t you like to see him, Sollux?”

“No, no, you can’t, I don’t want him here, don’t, _don’t_ ….” He scrambled to his feet and reached out for her hand. She drew it back.

“Sit back down,” she told him. “This instant.”

Panicking, his chance to stop this slipping away, he did so, hating it, hating her, his mind racing to come up with anything, _anything_ he could do.

“Please,” he said, as earnestly as he could muster. “ _Please._ I swear I will do absolutely every last thing you say if you don’t do anything to Karkat.”

She turned away from him, unfazed, reaching for the doorknob. Panic surged through him and Sollux reached out, grabbing the hem of her dress. She turned back sharply, genuinely shocked.

“Please, Empress, please, please, what do you want me to do? I’ll do anything, I’ll do it right now, just please don’t go. Please.”

“Get your lowblood hands off me.”

He released her. _Shit shit what do I do what do I do_

“It seems I don’t have any other way to make you learn, now do I?” she asked, tossing some of her hair over her shoulder. “Nothing else has made it sink in.”

The Condesce sighed. “It was the same with the Psiioniic,” she said wistfully. “Did you know your ancestor was a fucking traitor? He was like you. He thought he could fight me, thought that there were things he could keep from me. But you know what, little one? There’s nothing you have, just like there was nothing he had, that _I can’t take._ ”

She took a step closer to him. “After I executed his fucking traitor friend, after I _made him watch_ , there weren’t any more problems.” She smirked. “No, he became simply the most docile little creature you ever did see. Now, Sollux…if you think you can do that for me, if you truly believe with all your little lowblood heart that you can be a good little grub for me, then no. I won’t _have_ to hurt anybody.”

She knelt down again and put her palm underneath his chin. “But if you do one—more— _fucking_ thing to upset me, you’re not even going to know. I’m not going to give you the chance to beg for his life one more time.” Her voice went low and quiet, and she was digging her nails into his face. “I’ll simply come to you, walk into the room, show you the horns I cut off his head, show you the teeth I ripped out of his mouth, and all— _ALL_ —the shit peasant blood that came spilling out of his neck when I sliced it open. And it is only then that you will ever know I went to him. Do you understand? You don’t ask me again.”

Sollux nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you, Empress, thank you.”

The Condesce’s expression didn’t change. “I think I’ll take your earlier suggestion,” she said, getting to her feet. She grabbed Sollux by the arm and lifted him up as well. “I can’t bear to fucking look at you right now, I’m too fucking angry with you.”

She led him over to where some of her respiteblock’s furniture had been overturned and partially destroyed. She found a fairly intact wardrobe, lying on its side, and easily kicked it over. She threw open its doors, pulling out handfuls of decayed, moldy cloth that long ago must have been her clothes. She pulled out some indeterminate piece and tore it in two. She shoved it into Sollux’s hands.

“Get in and put it in your mouth,” she said, already working on tearing more pieces of cloth into strips. “I don’t want to listen to any of your coddamn crying.”

He did what she said, stepping inside the makeshift prison, the smell of mildew overwhelming him. He balled up the piece of cloth and put it in his mouth, recoiling at the taste of old, molded rot.

The Condesce threw him another strip of cloth. “Now wrap that around,” she commanded.

Starting to feel a bit humiliated that she was making him do it himself, he simply took the new strip and did what he was told. She handed him two more.

“Now take these,” she said, “and tie those restless little feet of yours, so you won’t run away.”

 _Fuck, really?_ He avoided looking at her, tried to ignore the heat of embarrassment rising to his face as he reached down and wrapped the cloth strips around his ankles. She watched every move he made, making sure he did it right, making sure he didn’t leave any room for escape.

“Here,” she said, once he was finished, handing him yet more cloth. “Now you make those hands of yours be still.”

This part was going to suck. His broken fingers were feeling worse with all the strain he’d put on them, and he could barely move a few of them at all anymore. But there was no pity in her eyes, she wanted _him_ to do it. And so he would. Using his good hand, he wrapped the cloth around one wrist and tied the best knot he could manage. He started to move on to the next one when he heard the Condesce clear her throat.

“ _Behind_ , if you please,” she said impatiently.

 _Fuck just do it Sollux she’s trying to humiliate you just do it and then she’ll lock you away she’ll leave you alone just finish the fucking job_

If he thought that she would allow him to use his psionics, he would have been able to manage it much easier. But as it was, the process was exceedingly painful. He kept banging his broken fingers up against the side of the wardrobe, kept losing his grip on the cloth, and now it wasn’t tight enough, she’d know if it wasn’t, it had to be perfect, he shouldn’t be able to undo that knot so easily….

Finally, it was done. Sollux had tied so many knots that he was sure he wouldn’t be able to undo them again if he tried.

“So,” said the Condesce, closing one door of the wardrobe, her hand on the other, “you stay here. And think about what I’ve told you. When I’ve decided that you may come out, we’ll go back upstairs to the bridge, and we’ll do some more work.”

The doors slammed closed, and he was in darkness, and away from her. He let out a breath, feeling like he could almost relax now, when suddenly he heard her banging violently on the doors just inches from his face.

“Fucking _coddamn lowblood SHIT!!_ ” she screeched. Then, the sound of something crashing against a nearby wall. “Fucking landdweller bulgesucker, mothergrubfucking SHIT!”

She was walking away from him now, but he could still hear her screaming profanity and inflammatory slurs at him, shrieking and raging and how in the hell could one troll have so much _anger_ ….

The door opened, then slammed shut. He was alone. Finally. He wouldn’t have gotten out of his little box if he could. He tried to relax, tried not to worry that maybe she’d break her promise about Karkat, maybe she was on her way to kill him right now, but he couldn’t think about that, if he did he’d lose his damn mind, just like her.


	16. Chapter 16

Despite the fact that it was wet, smelled intensely of mildew, and his wrists were chafing, Sollux actually felt calm. It was dark, almost cozy, inside the wardrobe. It wasn’t like when they had wired him up and shut him off like a machine. He could still feel. Still knew where he was, could still breathe and think and sense. Soon, though, he’d be back with the seatrolls, and they’d continue their work, and he’d be closer to dying. Closer to becoming the Helmsman, and this entire ship would be his body.

 _Maybe it won’t be as bad as all that,_ he tried to tell himself. _Maybe it’ll actually be easy._

Sollux wondered how his lusus was doing. The bicyclops must have not eaten since Sollux fed him before he left. It was probably pissed. His neighbors had probably killed it to shut it up by now. If he ever got home, if his lusus was still alive and wasn’t angry at him, Sollux was going to find another place to keep it. The thought of his lusus being chained up all by itself…it hadn’t ever really been that big a deal before. But now…now….

 _So what if I do get home again? What the hell do I do then?_

But he wasn’t going to go home. He knew that. There was nothing else he could try, nothing else to do. As much as it scared the shit out of him, as much as it hurt, as much as it was _going_ to hurt, all the time, he’d have to do it. He’d have to stay here. With her.

 _That’s it, then. I’m not going to try anymore. If it’ll make her happy, if it’ll make her leave Karkat alone. It’s fucking done. She wins._

He closed his eyes and slept a little bit. Giving up didn’t quite have the feeling of release he’d hoped for. Submitting to a worst-case scenario was a whole new kind of terrifying. To just take everything he had, everything about him, and hand it over to someone who only tormented him, only wanted his utter submission, and say, _Here, it’s all yours_ …how could anyone ever know how to deal with that?

 _It’s okay,_ he thought. _When I’m the engine I won’t feel anymore. I won’t know what it’s like to panic or be afraid. I won’t fear her. I won’t miss anybody. I’ll be dead. I’ll be dead._

It wasn’t working. It didn’t help. He couldn’t believe it. The lies were doing nothing, nothing at all.

He opened his eyes to the by-now familiar smell of rotted wood. How long had he slept? Had he even really slept? Who knew. It was silent in the room beyond. The Condesce wasn’t here still. Well, fine. He preferred his last moments of solitude.

 _I’m so fucking hungry…_ he thought all of a sudden. He tried to stretch, but the tight space allotted him little room. His elbows and shoulders were starting to cramp and feel sore. His legs were restless with the immobility. If only he could stretch himself out a _little_ …but this box was feeling smaller now.

He coughed, a small, muffled sound against the wad of cloth in his mouth. He tried to move it around a bit, but he could hardly even get his tongue to budge. He adjusted his position as best he could, but there was so little room for movement, it was like a fucking casket in here…. Experimentally, he pulled at his tied hands, but he’d done a pretty good job of keeping it tight. He was all of a sudden aware of how his shoes were still wet from when the Empress had thrown them into her pool. Every sensation in his body was being magnified tenfold.

He swallowed, but his throat felt tight and sore. He coughed again, his whole body shaking with the exertion.

 _Ah fuck…fucking…dammit,_ he thought. He coughed again and this time it felt worse. With each jerk of his lungs, a piercing pain shot into his head. Sollux couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been sick…it had to have been several sweeps, at least.

He closed his eyes, tried to go back to sleep again. It wasn’t working. The coughing got worse, and the obstruction in his mouth wasn’t helping matters. The extra effort was making him sweat now, and he shivered at the same time, and god it was getting to be absolute misery….

The door burst open, slamming against the adjacent wall. Sollux’s eyes flew open, and he suddenly couldn’t remember if he’d fallen asleep or not. He curled himself up into a tight ball, as much as he could muster. His whole body was shaking. _No I don’t want to go back up there yet I want to stay here longer just a little bit longer let me stay here…._

The wet-sounding footsteps in the carpet grew louder as they approached, and the doors to the wardrobe were slowly pulled open. Blinding light flooded into his dark sanctuary, and he seized up with apprehension. The Condesce looked down at him, reached in and ran her fingers through his hair. She frowned, then pulled her hand away, inspecting the drops of sweat that she had picked up from his head.

Sollux didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to look at her. _Look, see? I stayed real still and quiet the whole time. I didn’t even try to get out, didn’t try to run away. Look. Look. I was good, I was really good._

The Condesce wordlessly reached in, putting one hand behind his back and the other under his legs, and effortlessly pulled him out. It felt good, so good to be out of that cramped position, to be able to move his legs just a tiny bit further. She carried him over to the recuperacoon and set him down, propping him up against it. She took hold of the bonds tying his feet, and easily ripped them away. The Empress then knelt down on the floor directly in front of him, regarding him with a barely tolerant, disgusted expression. From a hidden pocket somewhere, she produced a spool of thread and a long, white needle of coral. She unraveled a small length of it, licked the end, and threaded the needle with expert efficiency.

“I don’t quite understand why I bother continuing to do such nice things for you,” she said flatly. She pulled the two flaps of his torn shirt together and began to pull the thread through it, sewing it back together with almost deliberate imprecision. She sighed. “I suppose we all do stupid things for the ones we love.”

Sollux couldn’t say he was particularly thrilled with her holding such a sharp object that close to him, but as long as he stayed still and didn’t give her reason to be upset, he’d be all right. He was certain, however, that she was being a bit sloppy about it to unnerve him.

A cough came, unbidden, in the middle of her work. The Condesce paused a moment, staring at him warningly, but then continued without comment.

She had fixed the shirt about halfway by now. She had been almost entirely silent the whole while, her cold, sharp eyes not moving from her work.

She let out an elongated sigh, sounding tired. “I don’t like having a fight with you, Sollux,” she admitted quietly. “I wish it were easy for us to forget it, but sometimes these things…aren’t so simple. You’ll just have to let me be angry for a little while longer. You _will_ be an understanding matesprit, won’t you, Sollux?”

He nodded, very slightly. He didn’t even feel comfortable moving that much in her presence.

“I’ve…vented a bit already, you could say.” Her tongue briefly flickered out from her mouth, like a snake, licking her lips quickly before disappearing again. “We’ve had a few more visitors arrive, and, well…I just don’t need quite so many trolls working for me.”

He hadn’t noticed before, had tried not to look at her so closely, but now he could see bits of blood splatter on her face…small droplets of magenta. He glanced down at her hands. Her fingertips were leaving tiny smears of color on her bone-white needle.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had to be a ruler,” she mused quietly. “I’ve spent so long by myself, I find that it was almost preferable to having so many lowblooded fuckers hanging around me, all of them oozing fake courtesy and shit-eating smiles. I can’t stand them, can’t stand a single fucking one of them. I’m done making decisions. I’m done doing all the fucking work. I’m just tired, Sollux.” She sighed. “I’m so very, positively tired.”

She sewed up the last bit of his T-shirt. She put the thread in her mouth and tore the end off, then patted down the front of his shirt and smiled lethargically. “There,” she said. “Done.” She reached behind his head and untied the gag, then poked her fingers into his mouth and pulled out the mildewed cloth.

Sollux took in a deep breath, and as he exhaled the coughing came back. He averted his face so he wouldn’t cough on her, and when it was finished he meekly managed to say, “Thank you. Thank you, Empress.”

“You’re welcome, sweetness,” she replied, patting the top of his head. He shivered; not from her touch but from the fever that was welling up inside him, making him unbearably hot and cold at the same time. If she noticed, she gave no sign. “I’m not going to untie you yet. Just sit there for a moment.”

He couldn’t conceive of doing anything else anyway, so he did what she said as the Condesce got to her feet and walked over to her seawater pool. He heard a gentle splash as she reached her hand inside, and moments later she was back in front of him, kneeling before him. She was holding a respectably-sized fish in her hands.

 _Holy shit food she’s actually feeding me I will eat that fucker whole I don’t care what it is_

“I’m going to let you have a snack,” she said as she effortlessly pulled the head off the fish. With her nails she slit it from tail to throat, then reached in and yanked all the entrails at once from the body. She tossed them into the pool, then idly licked her fingers. She plucked out a bit of raw, cold meat and held it in front of Sollux’s mouth.

“Open up,” she said. He did so, somewhat cautiously, and she pushed the sustenance inside. It tasted slimy and frigid and like the fish had been dead before she pulled it out of the pool. He forced it down. That’s what she’d want anyway. He could throw it up later.

“I was thinking, Sollux,” the Condesce said as she pushed another chunk of cold fish into his mouth, “it’d be nice to not have to be an empress anymore. Of all the trolls that have come to see me since I’ve returned…I like _you_ the most.”

There were pinbones and scales in the meat. He forced it down, trying not to gag or heave it all up, because that’d only insult her, she wouldn’t like it, and his throat was feeling worse and worse and the scales weren’t helping, they were only irritating everything….

“I’ve given it some thought. And I think…if you were to be my new Helmsman…we wouldn’t get to be together anymore.”

Sollux swallowed what was in his mouth. He just barely got it down. His heart was racing, and he knew what she was going to say next, he knew it, and fucking hell how much harder could she make _everything_ for him….

“I don’t want them to fix my ship,” she said softly, her eyes studying the floor. “I’m tired of it all. I want to just be with you, Sollux. That’s it, really. I don’t know if you could ever understand but I love you _so_ much.” She pushed another lump of fish into his mouth, and this time, she slid her fingers in past his lips as well. How in the hell was he supposed to chew his food while her hand was in there too…but he managed it, sucking it down and almost involuntarily licking her fingers as he did so, and when he swallowed she pulled them out again. She put her fingers inside her own mouth then, sucking them deeply and drawing them out slowly.

“We’ll leave, you and I. Wouldn’t that be so nice?”

Horrified at the thought, Sollux forced himself to nod. “Y-yesth. Nice.”

“I know you never really wanted to be my Helmsman. And…and I feel bad. A little. For forcing you to go through with it. You look so very pathetic when you’re scared, my sweetie, I hate to think that I’m the one that caused it.” The Condesce looked at him, and her eyes were…sad. She reached out and touched his face. “Sollux, honey-blood, are you…scared of me?”

He shook his head. The motion made him nauseous; the sickness was starting to get worse. “No,” he lied. “No, I’m…I’m not.”

She didn’t look convinced, or any less unhappy. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If I was hurting you?”

A wave of dizziness rocked him. Sollux blinked furiously, trying to clear his head, find his center of gravity, and he replied, “I…I would, but….”

The Condesce frowned. “Is something wrong, love?”

He coughed once, then again, harder, and a shiver racked his body. “I don’t…feel very….” His vision blacked out, and he fainted.

When Sollux’s senses returned to him, the Empress was shouting something muffled, through the haze, but he couldn’t understand her, and everything, everything hurt. He was sweating, he felt like he could die, and he was so cold, he couldn’t stop his body from shivering and shaking….

Somebody grabbed him up in careful, tender arms. The Condesce…was crying.

“Sollux, don’t leave me,” she begged, fuchsia tears spilling down her face. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I hurt you. Don’t die, Sollux, please, don’t, don’t, I’ll make you better, I will….”


	17. Chapter 17

The Condesce held him for a while, crying quietly, but even her freezing skin was barely enough to relieve the uncanny warmth surging through him. Sollux felt dizzy though he was sitting still, he was shivering despite the sweat pouring down his forehead. He swallowed carefully, taking slow, deep breaths to avoid throwing up the fish that the Empress had just shoved down his throat. The perspiration was making his wrists slick, and he restlessly wrenched his hands around in the dry and chafing cloth that the Empress still hadn’t untied.

“What hurts, Sollux?” the Condesce asked him after her tears had subsided. “Is it your head?”

He nodded tightly. His skull was pulsing, it was going to burst soon if he didn’t get some relief, and the tenderness was agitating the bloody stump of his horn, fresh pain pumping into it with every beat of his heart.

She carefully laid him down on the floor, on his back, and laid her cool hand over his forehead. It actually felt nice, it was a brief reprieve, but she pulled it away again before he felt soothed completely.

“Goodness,” she muttered, brushing his sweat off of her palm. “You’re positively on fire, little one. You simply must be more careful, don’t you know how fragile you lowbloods are?”

 _Maybe if you had fucking fed me more often and hadn’t stuffed a rag of mold in my mouth I wouldn’t be fucking sick…._ Sollux coughed once and shivered violently. Again he pulled at his bonds, trying to release his hands to alleviate the cramp, but he had done a better job than he’d thought possible, there was no way to loosen the knots whatsoever.

“No-no-no, honey-blood,” she said, grabbing his shoulder and holding him still against the floor. “You mustn’t try to get out. Just keep your hands still, all right?”

 _Fuck just fucking untie me I feel like shit this hurts this hurts come on please…._

“Sollux,” she said warningly. “I told you to answer me when I speak to you, remember?”

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, opened them, and nodded. “Yes Empress,” he murmured.

“All right,” she replied, letting go of his shoulder. “I want you to lay there, very still like a good grub, and I’m going to get you something to drink. When I bring it back, I want you to drink it all with no complaining, do you understand?”

He nodded again. He shut his eyes. The light was starting to feel much, much too bright. “Yes, Empress.”

She brushed some of his hair, wet and sticky from the sweat, away from his eyes. “That’s my good boy, Sollux.”

She walked away from him and he stayed still where he was, staring up at the ceiling. It looked as though the seawater pools up above were trying to drip down. The brown rot of water damage snaked through the tiles, like the room, though inanimate, was dead.

Sollux could hear the Condesce moving something, searching for something, muttering to herself. Every second that she was away was a precious moment of relief, where he could just close his eyes and not have to move, not have to listen to her, not have to worry. But the sound of her voice drew closer, and he groaned, forcing his eyes open, and then her face was above him.

She put her hand behind his back and lifted him up to a sitting position. She was holding a broken glass, a cup cracked down one side with a jagged lip. It was filled as far as it would go with an indeterminate red liquid. Sollux regarded it distrustfully, but the Condesce pushed it close to his mouth.

“Here, open up, little one,” she said with a touch of franticness in her voice. “Oh, don’t be scared. I found it just now, it’s from a long time ago, it helped me sleep once. It’ll make you better. Open your mouth.”

Warily, he opened his mouth just the slightest bit. The Condesce pushed the glass towards him, carelessly cutting the inside of his lip with one of the broken edges. She did not notice. The stuff—whatever it was—poured down his throat and burned, burned so badly all the way down. When it hit his tongue he recoiled, coughing violently, but she covered his mouth with one hand until he swallowed, then hurriedly poured the rest into his mouth. He tried to draw back, but she was holding the back of his head, forcing him to take it all in, despite the fact that he couldn’t quite breathe right, despite the fact that it hurt, that it irritated every ache in him tenfold. But he had to drink it, had to drink every last bit of it even if it was poison, because it was what she wanted. If the Condesce wanted something, then there was nothing else. Nothing else to consider, nothing else existed except her desire and the utter fulfillment of it.

Finally, it was all done, and Sollux wasn’t sure if pieces of glass had gotten in the mixture that went down his throat or if that was just how it tasted. His mouth was numb with the burn, his throat and lungs and tongue were all on fire and it hadn’t helped, hadn’t helped in the slightest little bit….

Violently, repeatedly, the coughs came, over and over, until his eyes watered and his muscles spasmed, and shit he just couldn’t _breathe_ , he tried to inhale, tried to take in some precious air but he was always intercepted by another wracking tremor.

 _Shit I’m gonna die,_ he thought frantically. _I can’t breathe, I really can’t fucking breathe…._

The Condesce laid him back down on the carpet and he rolled over onto his side, shivering and feeling drugged on top of feverish. It probably had been poison she’d fed him, maybe it was a mercy killing, she was culling him, she was letting him go….

No. Of course that wasn’t it. She’d never let him go.

A shadow was cast in front of him and he felt the cold body of the Condesce up against him from behind. She put her arm in front of him, forming a cage of her own presence, her hair lazily draped over his body and her mouth right up against his ear, her breath leaving moisture on his skin.

“I’m here,” she said sweetly. “I know it hurts, shhh, I know, I know….”

She had entwined the fingers of her other hand with his, rubbing her thumb over the cloth that still bound him, and he latched onto her with his unbroken hand. He squeezed as tightly as he could, anything to alleviate the searing pain that was rampaging his entire body, he knew he wasn’t hurting her, he could never grip hard enough to hurt her, and she let him hold on. He hated it, hated that she was the only thing he could hold on to, that she was the closest thing to _comfort_ he could find here.

The Condesce rubbed Sollux’s chest up and down softly, with the soothing, loving touch of a lusus. Finally, after what felt like hours and hours, the pain began to subside. It was slight, but it had been so intense these past moments that _anything_ less felt infinitely better. His breathing calmed, he relaxed the tension in his muscles, and he stopped wringing the Condesce’s hand. Her fingers moved up and she gently grabbed his chin, turning him to face her as she stared down at him from above.

“Feel better?” she asked cheerily.

“N-…not really…” he replied lethargically.

“Oh, that’s all right.” She kissed his forehead. “You need your rest. I’ll stay here with you until you fall asleep, how’s that?”

“Uh…okay…Empress?”

“Yes, little one?”

“Can I…would you please…my hands….”

She laughed, a lilting giggle. “No, no, honey. You’ve lost your hand privileges for now. But you won’t need them. I’ll get you everything you need. However…since you were so good for me earlier, staying so still and quiet in your box, how about I find you something more comfortable? Would you like that instead?”

Of course he would. The Condesce never asked fucking yes-or-no questions, she told you what was happening and made you agree with it. “Yeah,” Sollux replied, defeated. “That’d be nice.”

“All right, I’ll get you something fresh.” Again she got up, bounded off towards an unseen part of the room. Sollux rolled himself back over onto his back, took in a deep, easy breath, and let it out slowly. His lungs…actually were feeling better. He sort of hated it…he didn’t want to be indebted to the Condesce, not for a single fucking thing. She was back quickly.

The Condesce pulled him up to a sitting position and reached over his shoulders, untying the cloth from behind him. “Let’s see…let’s just pull this off here…hold still, Sollux…there we are.” She took both his hands in hers and slowly brought them forward, setting them down in his lap. He didn’t dare move them even a twitch.

She rubbed her fingers over his wrists and frowned. “Goodness, little one, what did you do to yourself? Do you see this?” His skin was scraped and raw, and he had drawn a small amount of blood on his left wrist. She shook her head and sighed. “You must try to take better care of yourself.”

Sollux nodded. “Sorry, Empress.”

“I forgive you. Now hold your hands up for me…a bit farther apart—yes, hold them right there, good.” She began to wrap his wrists around with another piece of her old clothing: a belt of sorts this time, it looked like. Sollux didn’t really care what it had been before. If her intention had been to make it more comfortable she had done a shitty job of it…she tied it so tight he felt some of his already abraded skin begin to blister. But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything except let her humiliate him further, let her do whatever the fuck she wanted and even _help_ her do whatever she could to hurt him. He bit his tongue and swallowed down the rising lump in his throat. He prayed that one day, submission would be easier. Hoped someday in the future, he had no more dignity and no more pride, so everything she did might not hurt as much.

“There!” she declared upon finishing the bond. She set his tied hands down in his lap and ruffled his hair. “You are such a very good little troll, Sollux. I want you to know that, I really do.”

Experimentally he tried to pull his wrists apart and hoped she didn’t notice. They didn’t budge. It was as though she had grafted his hands together, it was so tight. There’d be no breaking this one. No getting out of it until she decided he had his fucking _privileges_ back. He tried not to be angry. There was no point in wasting his energy on it.

“I bet you’d like to rest now, wouldn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, Empress.”

“How about I lie down with you? Just until you fall asleep.”

 _Yes, Empress. Of course, Empress. I’d love to, Empress. Anything you say, Empress._

He said one of them. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. They were almost automatic words out of his mouth by now. The Condesce lifted him up off the floor and placed him in the recuperacoon, then slid in next to him. It was made for a troll her size to begin with, so it wasn’t a tight fit, but at the same time Sollux felt suffocated. The Condesce wasted no time in pulling Sollux close to her chest in a tight embrace.

“This is the first time we’ve slept together,” she said excitedly. “Isn’t it nice?”

“Yes…really nice.” Mechanically he gave her a kiss, because she would like it, and he hadn’t in a while, and that was the sort of thing she would remember.

“I would love it if you and I could just stay here, in our respiteblock, forever,” she continued. “But as long as my ship is here, other trolls will come to disturb us. I’ll have to destroy the thing. But I’d do it for you, Sollux. And then we’ll find ourselves our own hive, and share a recuperacoon every day like matesprits.”

Matesprits. She still thought they were matesprits. And that’s what he’d have to pretend to be, for the rest of his life, when they left the ship. She’d be next to him all the time. He’d have to act like he liked it. And he’d have to…let her…do _that_ …again. And again. And again. He’d let her. He’d have to. To make her believe it, to keep her happy, he might even have to be the one who asked…. He’d have to smile the whole time, kiss her, tell her how much he loved it when she…when she—

 _You’ll get used to it. You won’t know anything else after a while. It’ll suck at first, it’ll hurt and you’ll hate it and it won’t get better it’ll just get_ easier….

“What about my lusus?” he had to ask, because if he followed his train of thought he was going to lose his fucking mind. “I haven’t fed it in days.”

She rubbed the top of his head. “Lusii die all the time, sweetheart. It may even find itself a new yellow grub. It doesn’t need _you_.” She giggled. “And besides, I’m your lusus now.”

Sollux felt his blood actually run cold. “I-I thought…we were matesprits.”

“We are! I’m both. I’m everything. You don’t need anybody else in the whole wide world except me, Sollux. I’ll take care of you, I’ll look after you. Because why?” she asked playfully.

It took a moment for him to find his voice, but he forced it up after one look into her mad fuchsia eyes. “Because…because I’m yours.”

“Very good.” She gave him a long, deep kiss, and he actually put in the effort to kiss her back. “Now remember, Sollux. We’re in a quadrant now and I want you to tell me if there’s anything I’m doing to hurt you. Promise you’ll tell me?”

“…Mm-hmm.”

“Good. Now close your eyes, Sollux, and go to sleep. I’ll watch you, I promise I won’t go anywhere.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter contains non-con.**

Sollux didn’t sleep. Whatever concoction she had fed him was indeed making him drowsy, but there was no way, absolutely no fucking way, he was going to let himself fall asleep so close to her. She was watching him, though, so he closed his eyes to hopefully make her believe he had drifted off. He dug his nails into his skin to keep himself awake, to force away the drowsiness, he couldn’t sleep next to her, he _couldn’t_ , she was so close, she was holding onto him so tight and he couldn’t bear the thought of having her touch him again, he really couldn’t.

Anytime he caught himself drifting off, he forced himself back awake. The Condesce wasn’t fucking helping with the way she was stroking his head so soothingly and the warm sopor slime was seeping into all his pores, making everything numb, everything calm, he was so tired, he wanted to sleep so bad….

Next thing he knew, the door slammed. Sollux’s eyes opened wide, and the Condesce was not there in the cocoon with him. Frantic, he checked to make sure he was still clothed, there were no new bruises, no…evidence that she had done anything. With some effort, he sat up, his head poking out of the recuperacoon, and looked towards the door.

The Condesce was standing there, her previously brilliant, golden trident absolutely drenched and dripping with magenta and purple blood. Splotches and splatter covered her face and her dress. She was wiping off smears from her face with only mild annoyance, licking it from her fingers when she was done. She approached Sollux in the cocoon; he was utterly petrified, rooted to the spot.

“It’s done,” she said casually. “I dismissed our guests while you slept.” The Condesce smiled and put her bloodied palm underneath his chin. “Now it’s just you and me.”

 _Holy shit she really…she really fucking killed them all by HERSELF?_

“You were sleeping so fitfully, I thought I’d leave you be for a bit. Oh, but do you know,” the Condesce said, her tone changing slightly, “you speak when you sleep, little one? Such a talkative little troll you are. Karkat, Karkat, Karkat.” She spoke the name with some amusement, savoring the sound of it in her mouth. She put one hand on the edge of the recuperacoon, leaning against it and licking the blood from her other hand like juice from fresh fruit. The magenta liquid was heavy on her fingers, dripping down her nails and into the sopor slime.

 _Fuck that fucking fever what did I say what did I FUCKING say_

“What is he to you, anyway, Sollux?” She sounded disinterested, but she wanted an answer nonetheless. “Was he one of your matesprits?”

“No,” Sollux replied, edging away from the purple that was clouding up the slime. “He’s…he’s nothing to me, not really.” He didn’t want to talk about Karkat. He hated the fact that he had apparently been mentioning Karkat’s fucking name in his sleep.

“Well isn’t that something.” Her tone was perfectly conversational, but there was something hidden there, something hidden underneath the layers of blood that coated her countenance. “You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you, little troll?”

 _Fuck she’s gonna flip out do something say something anything_ “No, I just…I just don’t care about him that much anymore. Because….” He forced a fake smile to bite back some of the nausea that welled up at the very thought. “I only like you now.”

“So _interesting_ you say that,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she leaned back against the recuperacoon, glancing up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Because for as quiet a little troll you are, Sollux, you just won’t shut the fuck up when you’re sleeping.”

 _Oh motherfuck Sollux what the hell did you DO_

“You say such awful little things that hurt my feelings, sweetness. Things like, ‘Don’t touch me’ or, ‘Help me, _Karkat_ ’, or just…’Get away, get away….’” She leaned in closer, the volume of her voice dropping to a near whisper— “‘…get away.’” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Now what do you have to say about that?”

“I was sick,” Sollux blurted out, retreating back from her a bit, further away into the slime. “I had a fever, Empress, I wasn’t talking about you, I was just deliriouth or thomething, of course I didn’t mean you, I would never thay that….”

She didn’t respond. Her expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked. “Empress, I’d never th—say that to you!”

The Condesce rested her chin on her palm, elbow atop the edge of the cocoon, swirling up the sopor slime with the index finger of her free hand. She watched Sollux with complete coldness, complete bitterness, contemplating, thinking, considering the verdict.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said finally, her voice quiet and flat. “Of course you’d never say that, you disgusting, lisping freak. Because if you’d said that, then you’d be in trouble. Sollux doesn’t like to get in trouble with his precious Empress, now does he?” She began to stand up straight and holy shit he had forgotten how tall she really was, how tall she could make herself seem, how big, how powerful, how everything….

“Sollux doesn’t like the things the Empress does to him, he doesn’t like the things she makes him do.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, I was sick, I promise that’s all it was! I’d never say that, it’s not what I really meant—”

He saw her raise her hand and didn’t have time to brace himself before she slammed it into his face, knocking wind and consciousness and feeling out of him for a brief, black second.

“Oh Sollux, Sollux,” the Condesce said, brushing some of her blood-dampened hair out of her face, “you know better than to say ‘no’ to Her Imperious Condescension, don’t you!?”

She grabbed him up by the neck and threw him onto the floor. In seconds her body was casting a shadow on Sollux, covering him up completely, and he curled himself up into a ball, covered his head with his arms, preparing for the onslaught, the punishment that was coming, if he kept biting his tongue soon he wouldn’t even have one left to bite anymore….

“Look at you,” the Condesce said scathingly. “Look at how fucking pathetic you are, it’d be so _easy_ for me to tear you apart, do you know that? I can take fucking anything I want from you and you won’t even put up a fight, because I _said_ not to.”

She grabbed the belt tying his hands and effortlessly ripped it away, forcing him onto his back, staring straight up into her eyes. The blood that had trickled down her chin was dripping off and down onto Sollux’s face. “No, it’s much too easy that way,” she hissed. “Much too fucking easy. You don’t know the _depths_ of shame I can bring you down to, little wriggler. You don’t know what fucking humiliation even is. I’ll make it hurt so bad you will fucking beg and _beg_ harder than you even knew you could. When I am done with you, you will be _shreds_.”

“Empress…” Sollux said, “…I really didn’t mean any of it.” It was a shitty effort. They both knew it.

“I’ve given you your hand privileges back,” she replied, ignoring him. “So now, show me how you fucking use them.”

“I don’t—I don’t know what you mean….”

“I mean, think about your dear friend Karkat, and use your fucking hands.”

With a sinking gut-wrenching feeling he realized what she was talking about. _You can’t say no. Remember? No is wrong. No is always wrong._

“And describe him to me,” she added with a little grin. She put her fingers on his knee and crawled them upward to rest on the waistline of his pants. “Maybe I’ll like it too.”

Sollux swallowed tightly, again and again. His throat was completely dried out. Already the blood was rushing to his head at the mere thought of what he was about to do. It wasn’t as though he’d never… _done_ that before, but never while thinking about Karkat. And he couldn’t just fake it, couldn’t just think about Feferi or Aradia because…that was depraved. They were both dead. He’d seen one die and killed the other himself. It would be sick. It would be really fucking sick of him to do that.

The Condesce playfully tugged at his zipper.

“Okay okay!” he shouted suddenly. “I’m…I’ll do it…just….”

She unzipped him, then set her hands on either side of his head as she leaned over him, staring with an expectant, mocking smile.

“Okay, all right,” he repeated, all the blood rushing to his face. “Just…fuck, hold on….” Shaking, he put his unbroken left hand above his waist, taking in several deep breaths before he could muster up the strength to reach down and grab himself. The Condesce giggled, and it wasn’t one of her cheerful, mischievous laughs…no, she was laughing _at_ him, and they both knew it.

Subconsciously, Sollux held his breath as he began, slowly. She was watching his every move, snickering every time he made a motion.

“Are you thinking about him?” she asked. “Let’s not make Karkat feel unloved, now, Sollux.”

“…Yeah,” he lied. He wasn’t thinking about anything really. He couldn’t. His head was spinning.

“What’s he look like? Don’t leave me out, Sollux, your Empress wants to know.”

“He’s…short,” Sollux replied. “He’s got really little…nubby horns….”

The Condesce laughed. “How appropriate. So tell me, Sollux, when you imagine him fucking your little lowblood body, how is he doing it?”

 _Fucking shit…._ “Like…aah…like you do.” It seemed like the right answer but he just barely stopped himself from throwing right the fuck up right there. Imagining doing that with Karkat, who he had only ever loved palely, was awkward and weird and skin-crawling enough, but to imagine Karkat ever, ever, _ever_ doing to him what the Condesce had…it was just too many kinds of fucked up. It made his skin crawl to think of it, the fact that he had even thought of it ashamed the hell out of him, he couldn’t ever tell Karkat he’d thought that, never, never….

“Be more specific. Come now, Sollux, I know you’re not used to doing all the talking, but obviously you feel something for this troll so let’s _do_ share. Now say, ‘When Karkat fucks me, he…’”

“When…Karkat….”

She glanced down at his hand, which he had stopped moving. He couldn’t keep going, he just couldn’t, it felt too sick and too wrong and he was so fucking ashamed he was doing this, how could he even face Karkat again—

“Don’t stop,” she told him. “You like it, don’t you? Talking about him. I know you miss him, so tell me more.”

Sollux clenched his jaw as tight as he could until his teeth were sore and pained. He kept on going, and shit he wasn’t even aroused in the slightest bit, she’d know, she’d _know_ he was faking, but he couldn’t tell her no…his body wasn’t allowed to tell her no either. He couldn’t deny her this show. He had to make it work. He had to.

He closed his eyes. _Okay, just…think of Aradia. Just for a second. Not the whole time, just to get it started…._ The way she used to kiss him, the way she giggled at how he got nervous and lisped around her, the way she was so impressed with his hacking skills and listened to him try to explain it even though she didn’t understand a word of it….

 _Shit Aradia I’m so sorry I’m not trying to be disgusting I’m not I just have to do this I’m sorry I’m sorry…._

Aradia was already dead. But he was thinking of her, thinking of how he missed her, how he used to love her, and he was doing it for the Condesce. _Fucking shit I can’t use Aradia like that I can’t I can’t think of her like this it’s disgusting it’s so fucking disgusting…._

“I’m not going to help you,” came the Empress’s voice. “You’re going to do it yourself, one way or another.”

He took in a deep breath. _Okay. Okay. You already fucking gave up this much, didn’t you, Sollux? Get used to doing more. Just get used to it._

The Empress bent down and put her lips directly next to his ear, dropping her voice to a soft, soft whisper. “Does he bend you over like a rustblood whore, Sollux, until you can’t scream anymore?”

“Yeah,” he conceded. _Just keep…keep going. Try to ignore her…._ “Y-yeah, he does.” _Can’t say no. Don’t say no, don’t ever say no._

“And? Do you like it?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

She giggled for a long while, then raised herself back up to stare down at him. “I’m not going to do _all_ the work here, Sollux. You try this time. Tell me what he’s doing.”

“Just…he’s just—” _God I can’t say it it’s so fucked up it’s so fucked this is so fucked_ He swallowed. He grabbed himself harder, trying to force his body into responding, to just get it over with so this would be done. “—kinda…on top, on top of me, and he’s…aah, I don’t know, just…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

 _Don’t give up. Try harder. You have to, Sollux. You don’t HAVE a choice, not anymore._

“I’m…” he said, the words coming out in a small, shaky whisper, and he resigned himself to it, to everything. “I’m sucking him off.” His face was absolutely on fire with all the blood and the shame that rushed in, and the Condesce was just smiling, grinning and dripping blood all over him and trapping him, tearing him up piece by piece.

She licked her lips, letting her tongue hang out several inches before pulling it back into her mouth.

Sollux shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at her, and he kept rubbing at himself, willing his body to like it, to react, to do fucking _something_. He took in a deep breath and forced himself to say, “His fucking bulge is in my mouth and I’m sucking him off and he doesn’t use a pail when he comes he just lets it all go over me and I like it, I fucking want him to do it and I’d let him do anything…I’d let him do anything he wanted to me….”

There was the smallest hint of arousal, and Sollux tried to grab onto it, tried to feed it, tried to let it grow bigger and bigger, and he was trying so hard to bring it there, it was almost painful how hard he was grabbing himself now….

“He uses me like a pail,” he said, breathing deeper. “He…aah…doesn’t…doesn’t let me have one either….”

The Condesce grabbed Sollux’s ear in between two fingers and tugged. “I’ve forgotten, Sollux. What’s his name again?”

“Aah…Karkat…his name is Karkat….”

“So say it.” She released him.

“I don’t….” He stopped himself, swallowed harder, but it was okay, the feeling was building and increasing and if he just kept going he could be done, he could be finished with this depravity and she’d leave him alone, until next time, until next time….

 _Just say it. Think of something else but just fucking SAY IT._

“…Karkat…” he said quietly. _I’m not saying your name because she’s forcing me to do this. I’m not saying your name because I’m thinking about you fucking me. I’m not, I’m not, please don’t think I am, please don’t think I would ever do this, please…._ “Karkat…aah… _Karkat_ ….”

“There it is,” the Condesce whispered expectantly. “There you go.” She stroked him, repeatedly, from his shoulder down to his elbow, as if gently coaxing him, saying, “You can do it, little one, almost there….”

“Karkat,” he said again. Just think of that name. Don’t think about his touch or his face or anything else. Just the name. Just the Karkat that was good, that was real, that still existed somewhere and knew what had happened to him and believed he’d come home….

“Karkat,” he said, the feeling building, the desire increasing, his body didn’t give a shit anymore it just _wanted_ it, wanted that climax, wanted that end, didn’t care what he had to do to get it. Restless, he started squirming, drawing his knees closer to his chest, digging into the carpet with his free hand, broken though it was. He bit his lower lip, to drive off the disgust, the sick taste of bile at the back of his throat, he kept his eyes shut tight because he couldn’t look at the Empress, he couldn’t, she couldn’t make him this time.

“Almost there,” the Condesce said, continuing to stroke his arm. “Come on, little grub, you can do it.”

“Mmm…nnnngh…aah—aah—Karkat…Karkat…Karkat….”

The Condesce laughed, a low, disdainful chuckle in her throat. She put her hand on his knees and pressed them back down onto the carpet, put her other, freezing hand on his own wrist, and gripped, gripped as hard as she could, keeping him there, holding him in that position, and she was fucking everything up, he was almost there and she was _ruining_ it, he had to finish, he had to, he had to….

“…Karkat,” he said, softer than all the others, and then it was over.

The Condesce held his hand there as everything came spilling out of him, all over him, all over everything, warm and sticky and fucking liquid shame. And she laughed, laughed as though it were the most hilarious thing she’d ever seen, as if she’d never stop laughing, this was the greatest joke, the most wonderful entertainment, the best, best, _best_ amusement of her entire immortal life.

She grabbed onto his horn and yanked him up to a sitting position, still keeping his hand in place, and brought him face to face with her. “What a cute little lowblood slut you are,” she said, droplets of magenta blood and her own saliva hitting his face as she cackled at him. “How sick, how truly sick. Let’s hope Karkat never finds out just what filthy things you do when he’s not around.”

Sollux wanted to tell her again, futilely, that he hadn’t meant to disrespect her, that he couldn’t have controlled what he said in his sleep, that he didn’t really feel that way about her, anything, any lie he could conjure up. But even stronger was the desire to just shrivel up and die in a deep, dark spot somewhere.

 _Fuck I don’t even want to go home anymore. I can’t deal with this. I can’t. I can’t._

The Condesce lifted her hand from his wrist. Bits of his genetic fluid had gotten on her skin, and she regarded it with disdain. “Well look at this,” she said, pushing her palm onto his face, wiping and smearing a small amount on his cheeks. “You’ve gotten yourself dirty again, love.”

“…Sorry Empress,” he said.

“What I don’t understand,” she sneered, “is how I can treat you _so_ nicely, let you have everything that is mine, and you treat _me_ like I’m some sort of monster! I tried to embrace you while you slept and you fucking _pushed me away_ , Sollux. I don’t like that. I don’t appreciate that in the slightest bit.”

“…I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need _Karkat_.” She spoke the name like it was a bitter taste on her tongue. “You only need _me_ , do you understand?” She yanked roughly on his horn. “ _I’m_ the only one who loves you, I’m the only one who takes care of you and I am _everything_ to you, Sollux. I am the only. Thing. That fucking. Exists.”

 _She’s right. She’s right. You know she is. You’ve known for a while now._

…So what now then?

 _Just say it. Make it easier. Give up for real, Sollux._

 _…But what would Karkat—_

 _It doesn’t matter. Karkat’s gone. You’re not seeing him again, you already had your last conversation with him and it’s done. Give up, Sollux. Give up for real._

“…Empress,” Sollux said, looking her straight in the eye, averting his gaze, then looking up again. “I’m th—sorry. For everything I did.”

She watched him curiously, saying nothing.

He looked away from her again. “It was hard. At first. Being with you. I sometimes said things I didn’t mean because I was afraid of you. But I’m not doing that now. I’m not doing that now because I want to tell you…that I want to stay with you.”

 _Do I really mean that?_

 _…Yeah. Yeah I really mean that._


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **This chapter contains dub-con.**

The Empress could not have looked happier. “You mean it?” she asked, as if actually afraid he would say no. “You really mean it, Sollux, you’ll stay with me?”

Sollux nodded. It didn’t feel forced. “I want to. I want to stay with you.”

“Haha!” she giggled, holding her hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh. “Oh, Sollux, I’m so happy! I’m just…just the luckiest seatroll in the whole world, the whole world!” She hugged him tightly, then quickly released him and tucked her hair behind her ears.

“I’m so glad, Sollux, I’m so glad, do you know how many trolls never get the chance to live with their matesprit? Oh my, I’m just…aah, _so_ excited!” She got to her feet, and as if noticing for the first time, stared down at her blood-splattered dress. She took hold of her skirt, inspecting it.

“Goodness,” she said. “Look at us, Sollux. What a dirty pair we are, we two.”

“Heh,” Sollux replied, laughing just the littlest bit.

“Well, let’s wash up, shall we? Let’s not forget, we have to be moving out soon.” She picked him up—gently, he noticed, being mindful of his broken hand—and brought him over to the seawater pool. She let him wash himself, cleaning away the mess from below his waist, and she wiped the blood from her hands and face.

“Now it’s a bit chilly outside, Sollux,” the Empress said when they finished, adjusting a few of her necklaces, “so I’ll have to find something to wrap you in. How about…how about you open that closet door there, and find something you like?”

“Okay.” What she had indicated was another overturned piece of furniture, not far from the wardrobe that a lifetime ago had been his last dark little sanctuary. Within he found a wide piece of purple fabric—hell if he could tell what it had used to be—that reminded him of Eridan’s cape.

“Here, Empress,” he said, holding it out to her. “I like this one.”

“Very nice!” she replied, taking it from him and draping it around his shoulders. It was just big enough to hang down to just about his ankles. It felt warm. It’d be a cozy walk with this.

“Now I suspect you’re still feeling a bit sluggish from your fever so I won’t ask too much of you, all right?”

Sollux nodded.

“I’ll carry you part of the way so you can rest. One of our seatroll guests told me there was a hive not too far from here. If it’s to your liking, we’ll clean it out and live there.”

 _Clean it out…._ He nodded again. “Okay, Empress.”

She smiled and extended a hand to him. He took it, gripping tightly.

The Condesce led him out of her respiteblock and into the hallway. The smell of death was immediate. Sollux held his breath and tried not to gag as they headed back up towards the bridge. He dreaded seeing the carnage, fresh corpses on top of the old, how many seatrolls had ended up coming here and dying because their empress was now completely mad….

When they entered the bridge, Sollux reeled from the cloying stench of blood and rot. The pool where he had thrown the Helmsman was completely purple, filled with corpses, overflowing with seatroll flesh and blood. The floor was smeared with magenta on top of the dried troll blood from sweeps and sweeps ago. They were really all dead. And the Condesce had killed every last one of them on her own. Had they even tried to resist her? Would it have mattered?

The Empress left him and went to a nearby control panel, humming to herself as she began pressing buttons and adjusting settings. Sollux took in the sight of everything at once. The cable trunk where he’d torn away the Helmsman, the throne where she’d touched him for the first time, the spot on the floor where she’d broken his horn and then his fingers….

Something was tickling on his hand. He looked down, hearing a familiar buzz.

A mind honey bee. It was hovering around his hand, landing on him, crawling, then alighting again only to come back. Sollux turned his palm upward, and the bee landed there, as if it had come just to find him. How it had made its way up here, he didn’t know. And he didn’t care.

The bee flew up and then down again, back into his hand. Sollux just looked at it.

He shut his hand into a tight fist, squeezing the bee into mush, crushing it into an unrecognizable smear. He opened his hand again, wiped the blood and broken wings and little tickling legs onto his pants.

 _Hope doesn’t fucking exist._

“All right, we’re all ready here, Sollux,” the Condesce called out, singsong. She took his hand and led him to the door. “Let’s try to be far away from here in the next few seconds, all right?”

She opened the door, out into the night air, the freezing chill of Alternian night, and the sea was still there just the same, still pulsing up and down, and the spot where Feferi had died had faded. There was no more blood there. It was all washed away by the tide and wind.

Sollux pulled his makeshift cloak closer to him, thankful for it, grateful that she’d allowed him to have it, because it would have only made him sicker to be out here in his short sleeves. The Condesce lifted him up, carrying him in her arms with no show of effort. “Just rest if you like, honey-blood,” she told him. “I’ll take us there.”

He closed his eyes. He believed her. He knew that if he slept, he’d never know exactly where they were going. He’d never know where his hive was in relation to their new home, never know how far they’d gone from the ship or how well they’d hidden themselves. Sollux found that he didn’t care. In fact, he preferred it to the alternative. Not knowing was better. It was always better.

Moments later, there was the deafening sound of an explosion. Sollux didn’t open his eyes to look. There was no love lost between him and the Battleship Condescension. Maybe now his ancestor could rest, knowing it was gone, knowing it was destroyed. The Psiioniic was no longer a grotesque mannequin on display. He was dead, his prison was gone, and his body no longer existed in a sick imitation of his torment.

 _That’s good enough,_ he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

When Sollux opened his eyes again, the Condesce was still carrying him, still walking along the shoreline. There was a dim light in the sky. Sunrise was coming. He hoped their destination wasn’t far, hoped they’d get there before the blistering sun came up. He realized that he trusted her, and his worry dissipated.

“Are you awake, Sollux?” the Condesce whispered.

“Yeah,” he replied tiredly. “Are we there yet?”

She giggled. “Almost. I can see the hive now. Do you want to walk the rest of the way?”

“…Yeah.”

She let him down, and it felt good to stretch his legs. He grabbed onto her hand. Sollux looked up and saw a modest hive, only two stories tall, farther down on the shore. _I wonder if it’s Gamzee’s…._ Maybe if he was lucky the Empress would catch him in a sopor-induced haze, and it wouldn’t even hurt when she ran him through.

But they came closer, and he knew it wasn’t Gamzee’s hive. There was a lusus there, and it definitely wasn’t a seagoat. It was some kind of musclebeast, but Sollux didn’t care much. It was prowling around the front door of the hive, and as soon as it saw the two intruders, it began to growl.

“Wait here, love,” the Condesce said, letting go of Sollux’s hand. He nodded. The Empress approached the musclebeast, who immediately began to whine as she came close. She raised her trident and it was over in seconds. Green blood came pouring out of the white lusus, who whined and yelped, quieter and quieter as it died.

Sollux heard a scream from inside the hive. He decided to look out at the ocean instead. He watched the horizon, and the waves breaking against the shore, as the Condesce killed the little troll who came running, crying and screaming for her dead lusus, but her grief only lasted as long as it took the Empress to run her trident through a second greenblooded body.

“Come on inside, Sollux!” the Empress called. Sollux turned away from the ocean and followed her inside. He didn’t glance down at the two bodies on the hive’s threshold.

It was a simple little place. Bigger than Sollux’s communal hive stem, but that didn’t surprise him. He tried not to take a really good look at the interior, because, really, what was the point?

“What an adorable little hive,” the Condesce said, gazing around. “It’s just the right size for you and me, isn’t it, Sollux?”

“It is,” he replied.

“Why don’t you go explore the rest of it while I take out the trash?” She grinned.

“Okay, Empress.” He found the stairs easily enough, ignoring the sound of the Empress skewering the bodies of the troll and lusus.

The little troll’s respiteblock was about half the size of the Empress’. It sort of looked like she had been into FLARPing, like Aradia, and there were a few movie posters on the wall that reminded Sollux of something Karkat would have liked to watch—

His whole body tensed up. Sollux began to tear down everything in the respiteblock, ripped everything off the walls and grabbed everything up off the floor, everything off the bookshelves, and even the husktop, and he threw it all out the window, threw everything out, cleaned it all away until it was like nobody had ever lived here at all. It was empty when he was done, empty except for a few abandoned pieces of furniture and the recuperacoon. It looked better this way. Much better.

There was still the ghost of a feeling, a little lingering shadow of the climax achieved while imagining Karkat. Sollux couldn’t think of Karkat anymore without feeling that little phantom shame.

 _Whatever. Just whatthefuckever._

The Condesce would probably be up here soon. He took off the purple cloak and draped it over the back of a chair, then sat down and began to untie his shoes. No sooner had he removed one than he heard the Empress’ footsteps on the stairs. Sollux felt his heart start racing faster and he just took in a breath, calmed himself, and kicked off the other shoe.

“Ah,” the Empress said, stepping into the room. “Very nice. Oh, but this little recuperacoon is much too small for me…no matter. You can have it, honey-blood.” She patted him on the head. “I outgrew the need for sopor slime many sweeps ago. I’ll find another place I like better.”

“Thank you, Empress.”

The Condesce set her trident, still muddled with purple and green blood, against the wall. She then knelt down on the floor, her skirt draping perfectly on the carpet around her, and beckoned to Sollux with a smile. “Come here, love.”

He did so, sitting down in front of her. She took his hand and kissed it softly. “Now we’re together,” she said. “This is an eon-long dream come true for me, Sollux. Let’s celebrate.”

Sollux nodded. He’d known it was coming. He wasn’t…wasn’t _ready_ for it, but he’d been prepared to hear it. Maybe if, every time, he just told himself he was okay with it, he was ready for it, maybe if he just told himself that every time there’d come a day when it was automatic.

 _She won’t hurt me. She won’t hurt me. Just lay down. It’s okay._

Sollux kissed her first. He was getting a little used to it, a little used to what she expected, how to kiss her right, and she kissed him back, always better and more experienced than him but she was tolerant of his innocence, knew he’d grow into it eventually and she had all the fucking time in the world to wait.

 _She’s not cold. Don’t think of it as cold, think of it as…cool like seawater._

She pulled his shirt off and pushed him down onto his back. _Don’t freak out now. It’s nowhere near done. Just breathe…breathe…._

He reached up and put his arms around her neck, holding her tight so she couldn’t tell he was shaking, and he tried to block everything out as she unzipped his pants again and pulled them away, they were so ruined by now, so fucked up from all the abuse and the dampness and the fluid and blood….

She was in him again. His eyes flew open at the contact, it was like she was on fire, burning and tearing straight through him, and he broke away from kissing her, gasping and hoping she couldn’t tell how terrified he was, but of course she knew, she always knew, it was what she _wanted_ to see.

“See?” she said, kissing his neck and squeezing his hips with her knees. “I’m so much gentler than Karkat, aren’t I?”

He whined, a wordless vocalization, drawn out and pathetic and he swallowed past the lump in his throat but it was fucking useless. He wanted to stare somewhere else, wanted to look up at the ceiling but it was just her face above him, he couldn’t see anything else but her, wasn’t ever allowed to look anywhere else but directly at her.

His eyes widened further as she pushed and he bit his lip, trying not to cry, he couldn’t cry _every time_ , it’d be unbearable as fuck if he did, he’d have to learn to take it, learn to like it. He’d have to learn.

“I’d never do to you,” she said in between kisses and exhales, “what Karkat did. Never, my sweet little honey-blood. Never.”

Something in his brain broke.

“What?” he asked, blinking furiously to stave off the blurry moisture filling his eyes. “What’d he do?”

“Oh, sweetness…” she said lamentably, “he hurt you, don’t you remember? Abandoned you. Remember how bad you cried? How deeply you felt it?”

 _No…I don’t…remember that, but…do I?_

The sensation was coming back, filling him up and his mind was feeling fuzzy. Pain on top of haze on top of total bewilderment reigned chaotic in his brain. _Did Karkat…abandon me? He said I’d come home, or did he say he’d bring me home…? I don’t remember. I don’t remember what he said._

It increased and increased again. Sollux grabbed onto the Condesce’s arm and cried out because it was getting _so_ fucking close, he needed it needed it needed it _now_ ….

“I’ll never do that to you,” the Condesce said. “I’ll never hurt you that way.”

Sollux screamed as he climaxed and _shit_ that felt so _good_ he’d never felt it that way before he’d never known it was _possible_ ….

There was a moment of inaction, and neither of them moved, Sollux breathed deeply in and out and the Condesce just watched him. After a while she pulled his pants back onto him and moved off him. Sollux sat up and reached for his shirt, pulling it on lifelessly. He reached over to the chair for his shoes, grabbed the white one and put it on, but as he was tying the strings he suddenly burst into tears.

“Oh sweetness!” the Condesce exclaimed. “Oh, honey, what’s the matter?”

He couldn’t stop himself, they were deep, heavy sobs that hurt with every intake of breath. He drew his knees up to his chest, covered his face with his hands and cried and cried and cried.

“Sollux,” said the Condesce, sitting down behind him and putting her arms around the small bundle he’d made of himself. “Why are you crying?”

“Because—” He had to stop and wait until there was a break, until he could breathe and talk without tears. “Because I fucking hate Karkat.”

The Condesce kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay,” she said, running both of her hands up and down his upper arms. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here, honey-blood, it’s just me now. Just me.”

“I fucking hate Karkat…” he whined again. “I hate him, I hate him.”


	20. Chapter 20

Sollux slept, and he woke. The Condesce fed him and he kissed her to say thank you.

He slept, and he woke. Together they threw out the rest of the little greenblood troll’s things. The tide took them all away by sunrise.

He slept, and woke. The Condesce wanted to go swimming out in the ocean. Sollux waited for her in a locked closet until she came home. She brought him back a red-and-blue piece of sea glass, and it became his second possession.

Most times the Condesce was content. She was happy just to be with him, and lavished affection on him in every way she could. He thanked her properly for it every time. He denied her nothing. He never fought her when she wanted to sleep with him, not even when she came bursting into the respiteblock in the middle of the day, pulling him out of the sopor slime and taking him while he was still drowsy. He knew better now.

Sollux didn’t know why the Condesce sometimes still got so angry. He’d thought she’d be happy when it was just the two of them. He tried asking her once, was there something that still worried her? She’d only told him to mind his own fucking business. He didn’t ask again after that. It probably _was_ none of his business, nothing he’d ever understand.

The moon rose and set, came up and went back down again. He slept. He woke. He ate. He kissed her. They went out walking sometimes, up and down the shore. He made little sandcastles and watched them crumble. The Empress actually taught him how to swim. He still wasn’t very good, but he could stay afloat now, and do some amateur stroke.

He kept the purple cloak. He didn’t need it anymore, not really. The Empress almost never let him go outside on his own. But he liked it. He didn’t really remember why. Sometimes he just wore it even when it was a warm night, sometimes he wore it when he was in the recuperacoon. Most of the time he wore it when she was angry, when she was having a fit, because he could easily hide in it. When the Condesce got violent he tried to ask her, _why are you so upset? Tell me. I want to help._

But that was just the way she was. Sollux knew what it was like, having your emotions go from one end to the other so quickly, so unexpectedly, and you didn’t have a single fucking say in the matter. He didn’t ask her anymore. She didn’t know the answer.

It was nice out tonight. It was a clear sky, as clear as it could get on this planet, both moons vivid and bright over the ocean. Sollux was walking back and forth in front of the water, just at the edge of where the water stretched in. It was his third time being allowed out on his own. He had his cloak with him, because it actually was chilly tonight.

Sollux never _did_ much when he went out. Just walked around, really. It was nice to have fresh air, listen to the waves, a few times he’d gone out and practiced swimming but he wasn’t too sure about doing it when she wasn’t around to help him if he needed it. He found a few shells that looked nice, and thought the Condesce might like them too. He picked up a few, pacing back and forth, back and forth, never going further than a few steps in any direction, bent down and picked up some more, scurried backward when the tide came in closer.

He heard a splash. His head whipped up, and suddenly he wasn’t alone on the beach. There was somebody else…another troll. Another…another seatroll. It had just come up out of the water, and was wringing out his cape—it looked a lot like the one Sollux had—muttering something or other, pulled off his glasses and wiped them clean, then replaced them, gazing around.

When the seatroll turned towards him, when his line of sight connected with Sollux, he froze. Sollux wasn’t moving either. He didn’t know whether to stay where he was, try to get the troll to leave on his own, or run back inside, calling for the Empress to get her to take care of it.

“Holy _fuck_ in’ shit,” said the seatroll. “ _Sol?!_ ”

Sollux wrapped his cloak tighter around him and stuffed the shells in his pocket. Something flickered in the back of his mind but he ignored it. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked quietly.

The seatroll stepped closer, adjusting his glasses as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Holy shit, Sol, you’re alive, you’re fucking alive.”

“Get away from me,” Sollux said. He wasn’t afraid, only annoyed. He wanted to go back inside. “Go the fuck away.”

The seatroll actually stopped in his tracks, frowning. “Normally I’d be fuckin’ thrilled to hear you talk like that to me but it sounds like you don’t…Sol, really? It’s me. Eridan.”

“I don’t know any _Eridan_ ,” Sollux said with disdain. “I don’t know any seatrolls. Except my matesprit.”

“Oh, shit, Sol…Fef’s dead, don’t you know?”

“I’m not fucking talking about _Fef_ , how the hell do you even know who that is!?” Something was welling up, some memory that he was willingly ignoring, stuffing away.

“This is gettin’ ridiculous now, Sol,” Eridan sighed. His voice got softer. “Look, I know about what’s been goin’ on. Karkat told me.”

The name…brought up something painful. For some reason he didn’t know, Sollux felt…guilty to even hear that name. He began restlessly tapping his fingers against his leg. “Look, I…” he began to say, “look…I don’t…will you just leave me alone?” He watched Eridan for a moment, and when the other seatroll said and did nothing, Sollux turned to go back into the hive.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare!” Eridan shouted suddenly, reaching out and grabbing Sollux by the cloak, yanking him down to the sand. Instantly Sollux tensed up, pulling his knees and arms in close to his chest.

“Okay okay,” he said softly. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry….”

Eridan didn’t do anything for a while. He just stared, bewildered, then slowly knelt down on the ground, sitting beside him. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, I’m not mad at you. Relax.”

Sollux relaxed just a little…but not really.

“I need to talk to somebody real quick,” Eridan said, pulling out some small device, Sollux didn’t know what it was and he didn’t care. “Just…don’t move for a second, okay?”

“…Okay.”

\--caligulasAquarium (CA) began trolling carcinoGeneticist (CG)—

CA: hey kar  
CG: WHAT.  
CG: youll nevver guess wwhere i am  
CG: LET ME GUESS.  
CG: YOU’RE AT A THREE FOR ONE SCARF SALE.  
CA: holy shit dont evven joke about that kar thatd be amazin  
CA: but no really this is actually wway better than that  
CG: STOP FUCKING WASTING MY TIME.  
CG: THIS BETTER BE GOOD NEWS.  
CA: it is  
CA: it’s the best newws  
CA: im actually physically sittin next to sol right this fuckin second  
CA: kar you there?  
CG: IF YOU ARE FUCKING AROUND WITH ME  
CG: I WILL SHOVE MY SICKLE SO FAR UP YOUR NOOK ERIDAN  
CA: im not  
CA: hes here, i found him  
CA: im like a mile awway from our meetin point  
CG: I’M COMING.

\--carcinoGeneticist (CG) ceased trolling caligulasAquarium (CA)—

“All right,” Eridan said, putting his device away. “Hey, sit up, Sol, I’m not gonna fuckin’ hit you or anythin’.”

Warily, Sollux did so, brushing some of the sand from his cloak. He glanced towards the hive. He hoped the Empress could see him somehow, so she’d come out and get rid of this vaguely hipster seatroll who was a little familiar but it didn’t really matter….

“Karkat’s comin’ and he’ll fuckin’ cull me if I let you outta my sight,” Eridan said, sitting cross-legged and folding his arms over his chest.

“I don’t want to see Karkat.”

Eridan smirked. “I thought you didn’t remember him.”

“I don’t…not really…I just know I don’t want to fucking see him, okay?”

“He’ll be here really soon so you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

They were silent a while, staring at each other, studying one another. Sollux occasionally glanced towards the hive. He wanted to go back in. He wondered why the Empress hadn’t seen what was happening yet, why she hadn’t come outside to save him.

“You’re not here to kill her, are you?” he asked Eridan. The seatroll’s eyes widened in surprise.

“What? Who?”

“My matesprit. Her Imperious Condescension.”

“Her—Her Imper—” Eridan stammered, turning around to look at the hive, as if just noticing it for the first time. He turned back to face Sollux, pointing back towards the small building. “She’s fuckin’ _in_ there?” he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“Um…” Eridan said, slowly getting to his feet. “Maybe we should go wait somewhere else.” He reached down to grab Sollux by the arm but Sollux swatted him away.

“No,” he said. “She’ll kill me.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re _leavin’_ ,” Eridan said slowly, as if Sollux were some stupid wriggler that needed it spelled out. He reached again but Sollux pushed him away. He scrambled up to his feet.

“ _No_ ,” Sollux insisted.

Eridan narrowed his eyes. “Now I remember why I had such a black crush on you. You’re fuckin’ irritatin’.” He glanced towards the hive again, appeared to consider something, then sighed and reaching for something in his pocket.

He pulled out a tiny jar full of some viscous, shining yellow ooze…honey. Sollux stared at it and felt his heart skip a few beats. It was mind honey. A whole fucking jar of it.

 _DON’T_ , came the immediate thought. _It doesn’t work. It won’t work if you try._

“I brought this for you,” Eridan said, holding it out. Sollux stared but didn’t take it. “Look, I’ve been to your hive. I’ve been feedin’ your lusus for you, it’s a real pain in my ass but I did it. I don’t know how to take care of fuckin’ _bees_ so it’s probably not as good as when you made it, but…but here. Here, have it.”

“No,” Sollux said, shaking his head. Eridan suppressed a frustrated scream. “She’s gonna kill me.”

“Just take it,” Eridan pleaded.

“ _Empress!!_ ” Sollux cried out.

Immediately Eridan rushed him, bowling him over and they both fell down in a puff of sand. Eridan hurriedly twisted the top off the jar and dug two fingers into the sticky substance. He reached for Sollux’s mouth, tried to pry it open, but Sollux just wouldn’t sit the fuck _still_ , how hard was it to get just a drop on his lips, just a little bit was all it took—

“Get _off_ —” Eridan just about shoved his entire hand into Sollux’s mouth, ignoring his teeth, not caring that Sollux was actually biting him now, and he rubbed the honey all over his tongue. Sollux gagged and tried to scream but Eridan wrenched open Sollux’s mouth, then hastily poured even more mind honey down his throat. He emptied the entire fucking jar.

Eridan stood up and ran.

Sollux sat up, spitting out the sticky, cloyingly sweet honey, as the door to the hive opened and the Condesce came strolling out. She frowned to see him collapsed on the ground.

“What are you making such noise for, little one?” she asked, strolling over to him.

“There…there was…” Sollux started to explain, still wiping the honey from his mouth, but when he caught sight of his hands he stopped mid-sentence. His head was starting to pulse painfully. He shut his eyes tight, opened them wide again, they felt like they were going to pop out of his head….

“Sollux?” the Condesce said, coming closer and peering down at the mess on the front of his shirt. “Is that….” She stopped, horror slowly creeping into her face. “Where in the fuck did you get….”

Red and blue psionic energy crackled in the air in front of him. Sollux grabbed onto his head, just to keep his skull from exploding, and his vision faded into white as the surge of pain and power overtook him. He screamed as something heavy and piercing blasted out from his eye sockets, and he couldn’t see anything, but it had been so long since he’d used his psionics he’d forgotten how frightening and how good it felt all at the same time.

Sollux didn’t know how long it went on. All he knew is that waves and waves of psionic energy were shooting out of him and he couldn’t control a damn bit of it and probably wouldn’t have even if he could.

 _The last time I did this, I woke up and found somebody that I really cared about dead. That was really…really long ago. Before this. Before…._

The headache induced by the mind honey swelled to a climax and he blacked out.

When Sollux woke up, he was walking among rubble. He still felt the psionic overload lurking back in his head, but it had dissipated to the point where he could vaguely control it. He’d forgotten how that felt. He’d forgotten so much. The entire top floor of the hive had been blown off. Pieces of debris were scattered along the beach, and dark, swirling smoke was rising up into the night sky.

 _Where is she?_ he thought to himself. He didn’t know if it was out of concern or fear. He really didn’t know.

He heard footsteps. He turned just in time to see the Condesce jam her trident directly into his shoulder, running him all the way through, and yank it out again. The pain was too much to even feel at first. It all ran into him at once, surging up and down his arm and through his entire body.

“How could you?” the Condesce asked softly, shaking and trembling with white hot fury. One of her massive horns was broken off right in the center, and blood was dripping down from her forehead onto her face. “How— _fucking_ —could you!?”

Sollux grabbed his shoulder, feeling himself begin to grow dizzy from the amount of blood pouring out of his wound, but the mind honey was still pulsing in his head, still powerful and still itching for a way out. He looked up at the Condesce, holding her trident, staring down at him with such utter betrayal and hatred in her eyes, and Sollux wanted her to stop, couldn’t take it that she was looking at him that way, why, _why_ when she was supposed to love him, he wanted her to be happy with him again, wanted her to…to….

The Condesce’s blood was dripping down into the sand. It was clumping, making a dark stain, like…like Feferi’s blood….

“Why would you want to _hurt_ me, Sollux?!” the Condesce demanded, actually sounding hurt, actually sounding like she couldn’t understand. Like she didn’t want to. Like she’d never wanted to.

Sollux remembered the first time he’d ever seen her. The look on her face as she discarded Feferi’s dying body, as she turned her gaze to him and immediately laid claim to him like some spoil of war. How it had just been _funny_ to her. Everything. From the first second to this moment. It had always been just entertainment for her.

“If I could do to you,” Sollux heard himself say, as if the words spoke themselves of their own accord, “every last fucking thing you did to me—” the surge behind his eyes was building again, and he was looking straight the fuck at her “—if you went straight to hell and suffered the same things that you did to my ancestor, it wouldn’t be enough.”

The Condesce’s eyes were widening. Nobody had ever spoken to her like that before. Not even those insolent enough to defy her at all. The betrayal and confusion was replaced by the emotion that had fueled every last one of her actions—rage. Bitter, raw anger, and she raised her trident to stab him through the heart, to rid herself of this traitorous matesprit, to kill the last ghost and memory of her beloved, dead Psiioniic….

“I hope this fucking hurts,” Sollux whispered, and the optic blasts shot out of him and engulfed the Empress, who screamed and melted and vaporized as the psionics tore off her horns, ripped the flesh off her bones, dissolved her eyes in her head and completely, utterly, totally destroyed every last trace of her. Not even her trident, not even a single golden ring of jewelry was left when the mind honey ran out, when Sollux collapsed on the sand, bleeding from the shoulder and ravaged by an agonizing headache, but not caring, not caring in the slightest bit.

He smiled and, light-headed, fell into darkness.


	21. Chapter 21

What was it like to die? Did a dead person know they were dead? Did an insane person know they were insane? Maybe they knew, but didn’t care. Maybe that’s what death was: not caring anymore. Leaving behind everything that once qualified as perception, as emotion or joy or worth, and letting pain drip out of you.

Or maybe death was hell, and you continued to exist, stuck in a mire of everything that had brought you down there, because it was always part of you. Maybe death was not an escape, but a sentence. Maybe, if something hurt badly enough, it was impossible to get away from it. Maybe some agonies were just that pure, they just got branded into you and became as much as a part of someone as their name.

\---

“You don’t want to come over,” Sollux said, setting a seashell on top of his sandcastle. “My hive’s full of way too much shit. And honey.”

“Honey?” It was a familiar voice. Sollux didn’t look up to face whoever was talking to him.

“Yeah,” he continued. The sandcastle collapsed underneath the weight of the shell. “Honey. For my lusus.”

“Oh.” A laugh. A sound from a long time ago. “I bet yours is easier to feed than mine, huh?”

A pool of fuchsia blood was creeping across the sand, threatening to engulf the heap of sand that had once been the castle. Sollux sighed wearily.

 _This one’s wrong too._ He stood up, and left the beach behind. He was in his hive now, getting ready to rest after a particularly difficult fight with his lusus. The front of his shirt was covered in mind honey because the damn bicyclops had knocked it all over him, and Sollux pulled it off, discarding it in a corner of the room.

He went over to his recuperacoon, the double-colored sopor slime warm and inviting, but as he leaned over to look into it…there was movement beneath the liquid. He gazed deeper, perplexed, and then suddenly saw his own face emerge from beneath the surface, gasping for breath, scrambling to get out of the cocoon, but something dragged the other Sollux back down again, and there was a deep, dark laugh from somewhere hidden.

The room was suddenly cold. Sollux looked behind him and his respiteblock was wrecked. The husktop was broken, the silicomb hive was destroyed, everything was overturned and decayed, and there was seawater filling up the room, soaking into the carpet and into his shoes and there was no way to get out—

Sollux shut his eyes tight, opened them again, and he was staring up at the wire mass that had for millennia been his ancestor’s grave. The Psiioniic stared down at him with red and blue eyes dripping yellow blood, it poured and poured from him like a fountain and filled up the pool beneath.

Sollux ran, into the next one, and he was covered in needles, wires sticking out of him from every possible place, and he felt his brain shutting down, he felt his consciousness drift into ones and zeroes, and he forgot how to breathe because he didn’t need to.

 _Why can’t I find it?_ he wondered, ripping himself free from that one and falling into the ocean, deep beneath the waves, too far past the point where he could swim. _Why can’t I get away?_ He let himself sink, ignored his lungs screaming for breath, shut his eyes and hoped that he’d end up somewhere else, somewhere good, somewhere dark and small and safe….

When he was a young wriggler, and the bipolar disorder had just begun in its full force, he used to stay in his recuperacoon during a depressive phase, and just stay and stay there all night long. That was back when his lusus was still just small enough to fit inside the hive, and it used to make irritated noises at him, try to pull him out and force him to do something, to eat something. Sollux usually just did what it said, and then when it wasn’t looking, crawled into the closet and hid there until the lusus gave up searching for him.

Sollux curled himself up with his purple cloak, and he was small enough that it covered his entire body and head. He stayed there, ignoring how warm it was, ignoring how he was kind of sweating from the excessive heat of the blanket because it was quiet here, it was finally quiet and there was nobody looking for him. The sun had come up and his lusus had gone back to sleep. Sollux couldn’t sleep. This manic and depressive stuff was too much to handle…how was he going to live with it for the rest of his life? What moirail would have the patience for a high maintenance troll like him?

There were footsteps. Sollux’s eyes shot open and he was underneath a table, in a dusty, broken-down room. He was still little, about three or four sweeps old, but he had never seen a room like this before. It certainly wasn’t anywhere in his hive. He threw the cloak over his head, leaving himself a little opening to see through, as the footsteps got closer.

 _Don’t find me,_ was all he could think. _Please please don’t just leave leave leave…._

Somebody was pacing in front of his hiding spot and Sollux bit his tongue to keep from crying out. A hand appeared on the underside of the table. The intruder was leaning down, all they’d have to do was look and they’d have him, they’d have found him….

A troll with nubby horns and bright, ornery eyes was looking straight at him. Sollux shut his eyes tight, as if by doing so he’d make himself invisible, because he didn’t know this troll and he didn’t know if it was a good troll or a highblood…all he knew was that it wasn’t a seatroll. He could tell that much.

“There you are,” the troll said, his voice tired and a bit rough around the edges. “Shit, I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Sollux.”

“Go away,” Sollux muttered quietly. His tongue felt clunky and heavy in his mouth. He hated talking, especially to strangers.

“Nice try,” said the troll. “Can I come in?”

Sollux didn’t answer. That meant he hadn’t said no; so the nubby-horned troll crawled in there with him, sitting a respectful distance away. There was a moment of charged silence.

“What do you want?” Sollux asked, daring to move the cloak just a bit from his head.

The troll shrugged and sighed. “Well, it might be hard to explain. First, I want to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I…be okay?”

“Well, fuck, look at the place you’re sitting in.” He gestured to the rundown room. “Do you even know where you are?”

Sollux nodded. “Of courth—course I do. I’m in…I’m in….” He glanced nervously at the floor beyond the table’s safe haven. “Um….”

“If you don’t know, I’ll tell you.”

“…Okay.”

“We talked here once, you and me. Through a viewport on Trollian. You were asking me for help because somebody was looking for you and you didn’t want to be found. But you were found. And I haven’t talked to you since then, Sollux.” The troll paused. “I’ve been real worried.”

“I’m thorry, who are you?” Sollux narrowed his gaze, suspicious.

“My name’s Karkat,” he replied. “We’re friends. You ought to remember me, I piss you off often enough.”

“Why are you here?”

Karkat looked at him steadily. “Because I want you to wake up.”

“I’m not….” A flicker of remembrance. Then it disappeared. “I’m not asleep.”

“You are. Right now you and me and Eridan are sitting in this cave near the beach and you’re in a fucking coma or some shit from blood loss and I’ve been asleep too, dreaming and looking for you for fucking hours and hours.” He scowled. “We don’t know shit about stab wounds but we’ve been talking to Kanaya and she’s walked us through it. We stopped the bleeding but…Sollux you’re gonna fucking die.” For the first time Karkat sounded afraid.

“I’m not hurt,” Sollux replied. “I don’t know why you’re worried. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you’re fucking hiding,” Karkat snapped back. “Look at where you are right now, Sollux. This is a _bad place_. Do you understand?”

“It’s not, I’m in….” Why couldn’t he remember where he was? He looked out into the room again, as if trying to draw some memory from it, but it was too little, it was too faint and it wasn’t worth it anyway and….

“You’re hiding,” Karkat said again, his voice sounding more desperate. “From what?”

_What are you hiding from, little wriggler?_

Sollux gripped the cloak tighter and suddenly the fingers on his right hand hurt. He curled himself tighter into a ball. “…There’th thomething out there, ithn’t there?” he asked quietly.

A cacophonous bang was sounding in the corridor without. Footsteps of something bigger, much bigger than Karkat, were approaching.

“No,” Karkat replied. “No, there’s nothing.” More banging. More noise, more screams, more shouts. Why was Karkat lying to him?

Karkat held out his hand. “You have to come out. You have to wake up and come back home.”

“I don’t want to,” Sollux replied, his whole body trembling, and he just couldn’t make himself small enough, the banging was getting deafening now….

“Why not? I’m there. I’m waiting for you.”

“Because…because some things just hurt too much.”

The only sound, for a long time, was the pounding and raging and demonic screams from outside in the corridor. They sat there, not speaking, not knowing what to say, not knowing where to go from here.

“What would make it better, Sollux?” Karkat asked, his voice small, powerless.

“Do you think that if I fucking knew I’d be sitting here?” Sollux snapped back. “Do you think I haven’t tried finding somewhere else? That I haven’t tried everywhere…?”

“So why’d you stop here?”

“Because this is where I found the mind honey. The first time. When I was here I believed it was over, that I could end it, I could get away.”

“It _is_ over,” Karkat insisted. “You did end it. So wake the fuck up!”

“I can’t,” Sollux protested, wincing with every new noise from outside. “She’ll still be there.”

“ _Fuck_ her!!” Karkat shouted. His voice was barely audible over the racket. “You killed her, Sollux! You fucking blew her up!”

 _Where did you go, my little Helmsman?_ The voice overwhelmed everything that Karkat was saying, completely blocked him out, his lips were moving and his expression was angry and desperate and determined but Sollux couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear a thing. The pounding was louder and louder, and the room began to shake and the ceiling started to crumble down on them.

Sollux wrapped the cloak tightly around him, and when he opened his eyes again, everywhere he looked there were razors. Shining blades and knives dripping with every color of troll blood, and they scratched the air and made deafening noises of metal on metal. His entire body was on fire, burning like a fatal fever. He tried to scream, tried to expel some of his terror, but nothing came, he could only breathe deeply, only inhale and exhale and inhale again and try not to let them near, not to let them touch him.

Eyes the color of jagged, razor-sharp coral filled his vision and it provoked something in him. He didn’t remember why, he just knew it was a bad color, the color of agony and if he ever saw it he knew he was in trouble, he knew something was about to hurt….

He stiffened up, drawing his arms and legs in close to him, averting his face and praying the eyes didn’t see him, that the icy hands wouldn’t touch him, look, look, he was being _good_ , he hadn’t done anything wrong, not this time, not this time….

A bitter chill joined the burning and a small whimper escaped him. It was near him now, touching him, holding him close, and he couldn’t push it away, couldn’t say no, remember you can _never say no_. No is wrong. No means punished.

“Sollux,” came somebody’s voice. He didn’t recognize it. It was neither the Condesce nor Karkat, yet both of them at once. They were both calling him.

“Come with me,” they said.

 _It’s too hard,_ he thought. _It hurts too much._

He ignored them both, and descended down further, into blackness beyond blackness, silence beyond silence, and he stayed there, deaf, blind, immobile. It wasn’t pleasant…but it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t pain and it wasn’t relief. It was just nothing. Just nothing.

_That’s good enough._

\---

There was no when, no later, no after. There were endless voids of darkness and that was it. Time didn’t pass and time didn’t exist. So he didn’t know what to think when he felt something…different. Didn’t know what to think when he felt something at all.

He’d forgotten feeling, forgotten limbs and sensation and what it was like when something brushed up against your hand, tickling…tickling your skin. Sollux opened his eyes. He’d forgotten he had them. He didn’t need them anymore. Open was the same as closed. He felt the tickling again, and became further aware of his hand. Further aware of his eyes, and his head, and the fact that he was lying down in a void, and something else was with him.

He turned his head. He could move. It was starting to come back to him, all the things his body was meant to do. He turned to look at what was making him feel, what was “other”, what was there too.

The tiniest little red crab he’d ever seen in his life. Barely bigger than a bee. It was pinching him, gently and firmly all at once, nipping awareness back into him. Sollux sat up. He looked at the crab with absolutely no emotion at all.

The crab stopped and looked at him. It scuttled one way. Sollux didn’t move. The crab ran back and grabbed his finger with its tiny claw, squeezing and squeezing as hard as it could. It scuttled away again.

Sollux got up. He remembered how to walk. Remembered that he needed to, if he wanted to move. Moving was a good thing. Motion was change.

The crab danced around in a circle and then scurried away again, towards somewhere else, somewhere that wasn’t “here”, if temporal space were to exist. Sollux followed it. As he did so, he started to see color again, became further aware of his body, the fact that he was wearing two mismatched shoes, and a shirt that had been ripped down the center and crudely stitched back together.

And then more feeling came into him. His fingers stung and pulsed with dull, aged pain. One of his four horns was broken, and it still felt raw and sore. And he felt the building swell of shame as the memory of perverted pleasure ghosted beneath his waist. He swallowed painfully and continued to follow the crab.

Finally, the crab stopped. It turned to face Sollux, and Sollux bent down, picking it up in his hands. The crab pinched his fingers, softer this time.

“I guess you have to stay here,” he realized. Speaking was odd, but liberating. “Thanks.”

He set the crab down and it danced in a circle again, watching him expectantly as he walked out.

Blinding pain filled his head and his shoulder. Sight was fuzzy, sound was muffled, but he heard something, something familiar, and he didn’t have the energy to open his eyes right now but it would come, just give it some time….

“I don’t fucking _know_ what happened!” somebody shouted. Karkat shouted. It was Karkat, and he was upset. More than usual. “He just disappeared all of a sudden, I tried to stop him but I couldn’t….”

A tense silence. “Fuckin’ shit…” said another voice…said Eridan.

Somebody sat down next to him. Sollux knew it was Karkat, even without opening his eyes. “Fuck,” Karkat said quietly. Something metal banged against stone, the sound of a sickle blade being swung furiously against the cave wall. “ _FUCK!!_ ”

“Hey Kar,” Eridan said. There was the sound of a clicking keyboard. “What do you want me to tell Kan? She’s flippin’ her shit a little bit.”

“Fuck, Eridan, I don’t… _you_ come up with a way to tell her!! Just say, ‘Hey, Karkat fucked up again!!’” A moment of silence and tensed breathing. “Motherfucking _shit DAMMIT!!_ ”

Sollux tested the movement in his left hand. It was tingling with feeling again. He opened his eyes just a little, couldn’t keep them open for long, but saw Karkat was close next to him. The shaking fist that was holding his sickle was on the floor, close to where Sollux could reach him.

He reached out, slowly, and brushed his fingertips against Karkat’s hand. Karkat flinched, wiped his eyes, and muttered, “Fucking hermit crabs in this fucking place….” He turned. Silence. “Oh shit. Oh shit, Eridan. Hold on, hold on—”

Sollux forced his eyes open and saw Karkat looking down at him, staring as though he could will reality into being favorable through raw emotion alone. But maybe Karkat had always been able to do that. At least, that had always been the way he did things. It was easier to keep his eyes open this time.

“KK,” Sollux said, his throat, tongue, mouth, everything completely dry.

“Holy shit,” Karkat replied. “Holy shit, Sollux, you were dead, you were _dead_ , I saw you disappear.”

“…I was only half dead.”

“You fucking asshole.”

Strength was coming back in tiny waves. It was easier to talk. Easier to stay awake. Sound was clearer. He heard the ocean from somewhere far away.

“How long has it been?” Sollux asked. He didn’t have so much as a guess.

A small pause before Karkat answered. “Almost two perigees. I don’t know if you know this but…back when we were talking through the viewport and everything, when you dropped the husktop the connection didn’t go out. I couldn’t see anything but I heard it all. …It’s probably a good thing I turned off my fucking microphone otherwise you totally would have heard me flipping the fuck out. I pretty much immediately trolled Eridan and told him we needed to find you.”

“…Oh.” Sollux averted his eyes. So. He was alive, the Condesce was dead, but “after” wasn’t as…as relieving as he’d hoped. Well, shit, he’d always known it wasn’t going to be. What if Karkat asked him about…about anything? He could never tell him. Especially not about when the Condesce had made him….

Sollux shut his eyes tight at the thought. It was as though just by thinking it he’d made Karkat aware. He’d never tell Karkat. He couldn’t. There was no way they could stay friends if he did. Sollux wasn’t sure they could stay friends _now_.

“How far are we from….” He didn’t care where. _Anywhere._ Anywhere he knew.

“A couple hours away from my hive,” Karkat replied. “But seeing as how you almost just fucking _died_ , we’re staying here for a while.”

Sollux thought that was fine. For a while he didn’t say or do anything. Karkat made him drink some water and eat a little bit of food at a time. Eridan typed furiously on his husktop, continuously muttering about how he wasn’t going to get mind honey out of his scarf for days. Somewhere outside the cave, the bright light of the sun was shining orange. It’d be night soon…a new one. Sollux would sleep now, and wake up later, and then…and then what?

A few hours passed. Karkat and Eridan were discussing something in low tones, probably thinking Sollux was asleep or didn’t want to hear. He also heard a third voice—Kanaya’s voice—coming from the husktop, through the Trollian viewport, but thankfully Karkat wasn’t letting anybody see Sollux. Not yet, at least. Sollux drifted in and out of listening, but he thought he heard other voices later…Terezi, Nepeta, Tavros…Sollux wasn’t forced to look at or talk to any of them. That was fine, for now.

Finally, it seemed like fatigue was taking its toll on Eridan and Karkat, sleep waiting to claim them after being staved off for so long. Eridan murmured something about _actually pretty happy you’re okay_ to Sollux, then wrapped himself up in his cape and slept in a far corner of the cave.

Karkat, without asking and without invitation, laid himself down right next to Sollux. _Right_ next to him, as in Karkat’s body was actually touching Sollux’s and he grabbed onto Sollux’s hand and this was kind of…kind of too close and kind of reminded him of when he’d….

Sollux moved himself a little distance away from Karkat. “Could you not…not so close,” he said quietly.

“…Sure.” Karkat didn’t let go of his hand. Sollux was actually glad for it.

“So,” Karkat said, “do you want me to come stay at your hive or do you want to stay at mine?” That was the only question here—it was already decided that Karkat wasn’t going to leave him by himself. Sollux didn’t get a say in that. He found that he didn’t mind that part so much.

“…I want to go home,” Sollux replied. “Come to mine.”

Karkat nodded. “Okay.” He was silent a moment, and looked down at Sollux’s hand. “I noticed those two fingers don’t move,” he observed. “Kanaya thinks we could fix it if we break them again. Carefully. Let them heal right this time.”

Sollux shrugged.

Another pause. “I asked Equius,” Karkat said. “He said that if you kind of file it down your horn should grow back in eventually.”

“Equius’s horn hasn’t grown back in.”

“That’s because the sweaty asshole keeps breaking it. And—and look, yours already looks a little bit better….” Karkat lifted his hand to touch it, but Sollux flinched away from him.

“Come on, don’t,” Sollux muttered restlessly.

“Sorry.” Karkat readjusted his grip on Sollux’s hand. “I’m sorry, Sollux.”

“For what.”

“Taking so long to find you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I’m really fucking sorry.”

Sollux suppressed a laugh, but it quickly faded away. “It’s okay, KK. I was with my matesprit. I would have been all right.”

Sollux felt Karkat’s hand stiffen. Karkat had turned his head, was staring straight at him, but Sollux wouldn’t look back. He didn’t really…want to. Not yet.

“The Condesce wasn’t your matesprit,” Karkat said softly, the words coming out tightly, as if it was agonizing to even have to say them at _all_. “Don’t you waste a single fucking second of your life feeling sorry that she’s gone.”

Sollux stared at the cave ceiling. Yeah, the Empress had been…awful…awful to him, but…hadn’t she made up for it just a little? She wasn’t always that way. She loved him, at least a little. Didn’t she say such sweet things to him? Hadn’t it been _her_ hand in his own every time he was upset? Hadn’t she been the one to lay next to him, hold him tight, kiss him when he didn’t want it…force herself on top of him when he was so tired and his whole body ached so bad….

“I think she did love me,” Sollux heard himself say. “She was just…really bad at…she didn’t know how to show me right.”

After a moment Karkat’s tensed breathing became audible. He was starting to grip Sollux’s hand hard enough to make it hurt. He rolled over and warily, cautiously placed his arm over Sollux’s chest, careful not to disturb the layers of crudely applied bandages on the opposite shoulder, and hugged as hard as he could.

“…This is…” Sollux said after some silence, “a little red for us to be doing, don’t you think?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Karkat replied, his voice muffled from where he’d buried it into Sollux’s arm.

“What’s Gamzee think about you staying with me?”

“My moirail’s not so much of an asshole that he’d object to me helping a really fucking good friend.”

“…Okay.”

It wasn’t comfortable, having another body so close to his own, but it was Karkat. It wasn’t the Empress. Karkat was warm and he fit just right, right where he was. The Condesce had been clammy and much too big to do anything but drown him, crush him, cast a complete shadow over him in every way. She’d tried to take Karkat from him, and she’d succeeded. But Karkat was here now, wasn’t he? Karkat was here and he was going to bring him back home, like he’d said.

Karkat didn’t know everything that had happened. Didn’t know yet, anyway. Sollux dreaded telling him. He knew Karkat would wait as long as it took. It wouldn’t change anything. Everything was already written. It had all already happened, and would always have happened, and there was no way to live in a world anymore where it hadn’t happened.

Karkat was falling asleep. Sollux could tell by the way his arm felt heavier on his chest, the way his breathing became less frustrated and more rhythmic. It felt…nice. Sollux moved himself just close enough so that their heads were touching.

“You’re really warm,” he said.

“Yeah…” Karkat replied, still a little awake. “So are you because you’ve got a fucking fever. Just go to sleep. I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

It was weird, and Sollux had to will himself to stay where he was, not to move away from Karkat because the contact was still just a little too uncomfortable. Everything in his body hurt and Feferi was always going to be dead and he wasn’t sure if he missed the Condesce or not. But right now…right now was…okay. Karkat was there. He’d be there when he woke up.

That was good enough.  
\----

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was inspired by this picture: http://gcterezi.tumblr.com/post/9114142313/w-at-a-perfect-little-replacement-youll-be


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